Terra Firma
by Legend Maker
Summary: Nothing is given to man on earth. Struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible. The hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen. Will you die, Terra? Or live by this example?
1. Part 1

**_Terra Firma_**

Note 1: Story written with considerable script doctoring from our good friend Bobcat. Love him, or else this would be endless angst.

Note 2: This takes place in my own personal canon, which had a lot of my own storyline events (like Terra not being a traitor). You don't really need to know it to read this, but if you're wondering who this 'Noel' guy is, well, that's why.

Note 3: No Southerners were harmed in the making of this story. Why am I stressing this point? Oh you'll see...

**_Part 1: Terra Incognito_**

**_Once upon a time, there was a girl named Tara Markov, who could control the earth with her mind. An apt power for her name, and easy to change for her title, Terra, Latin for earth._**

**_In one world, she was a traitor, and a cruel soul whose veneer of heroism fooled several true champions who nearly died because of her. Her betrayal seemingly led to her own death, unrepentant to the end of the crimes she had committed…whether she truly died then, though, or perhaps later is a tale of much confusion, and one for another time…_**

**_In another, she was also a traitor, but far more innocent, manipulated by a far superior and malignant mind much more then holding any dark urges of her own. In the end, she died not as a screaming psychotic but as a hero, repenting her evil deeds with her life. But her death, like in the first world, was not as certain as death usually is, and perhaps she returned…perhaps with no memory, or perhaps with far too sharp a one. But that is another untold tale…_**

**_But in another world, circumstances lined up just slightly differently. The mind that worked with her in her betrayal in both was denied her. The flaws in her thinking were unexploited, and eventually began to heal…_**

**_But this new world was not without tests, and in the end Tara Markov faced one beyond her comprehension._**

**_It was not without its costs._**

**_But unlike the first two, she did not die. In some ways, she learned to live._**

**_But the aftermath of the costs she did bear had their own consequences._**

**_And so, for now, she did not walk with the family she had found. For now, she walked, in many ways, alone and much changed._**

**_But just because you have left the world…does not mean the world has left you…_**

**_And sometimes, the greatest test is yet to come…_**

* * *

**People think being a hero is all fun and games. Or rather, children think that and want to be us, and adults think that and tend to worry about us. More then a few don't stop at worrying.**

**I suppose they have reasons for it at times…**

_TERRA CALM DOWN YOU'LL MAKE THE WHOLE TOWER COLLAPSE…!_

**And they can be right. There are more then a few games to this way of life, and fun, well…what's better then saving the day with your friends, then going home and having pizza?**

**Well, parades. Medals. But that's less common. Usually you'll have to settle for the small stuff. Like hanging, or putting the beatdown on a supervillain together…when you can actually work together…**

"_Take the ugly one!"_

"_You take the ugly one!"_

"_I'll take the ugly one!"_

"_Which one's the ugly one?"_

**But people who think being a superhero is a kid's game, they're way off base. It's hard work at times. Incredibly hard. Especially when SOME jackasses are riding you…**

"_Do it better."_

"_What? Noel, I nearly got a bull's-eye…!"_

"_Which wouldn't do us a damn bit of good if we'd needed a bull's-eye. Real life doesn't hand out second chances like they're candy. DO IT BETTER."_

**…But there are worse things in this existence.**

**When people die.**

**When evil seems to have the upper hand.**

**When light just can't seem to break through the darkness…**

_The pain in her body was terrible, but it couldn't compare to the pain in her heart. She'd failed._

_They'd needed her, perhaps more then they'd ever needed anything. And she'd tried. She'd tried as hard as she could, gone above and beyond anything she'd ever dreamed of being able of doing…and it hadn't been enough._

_And, lying amongst the rubble of the city, her city, the city whose heroes had adopted her and given her more then she could have ever asked for, when she'd really needed to give something back…she'd blown it. When it came down to the wire, she'd failed in her powers just as she always did._

_She'd let them all down, and now she was going to die. That didn't hurt as much as knowing her friends were going to die, countless innocents were going to die, and she could have prevented it, if only she'd been stronger, if only…_

**But of course I didn't die. That is the true blessing of a team: you're parts of a whole, and even if you fall short, there's always someone there to take the baton, or some times more then one.**

**Not that there are no consequences…**

…………………

**It was a strange lightness, that was how I think of it. Ever since that day. I never thought I'd be able to control her powers. I was wrong. But even that…it wasn't enough for what I attempted to save the world.**

**And since then, my powers had been gone.**

**Once, I'd have wanted nothing more. But times had changed, and so have I.**

**So when I left, it hadn't been to flee, or out of shame for my supposed failure. I went for herself. I learned how to be a hero, now I want to learn who she was and if that's really who I am or just part of my life to move on from, on the way to find out who I really am. It was a question I've always been looking for an answer for, and I've been distracted by the superhero business long enough. Yeah, I need to think that…and some other things through.**

…**sometimes I think of the alternatives.**

**How chance had saved me, while elsewhere…**

_She'd thought she'd done the right thing but it was all a lie she'd been manipulated from the start she'd been weak and now everything was boiling she could feel the power in the volcano she'd awoken a fury that outstripped any weapon or bomb mankind had built and it would send Jump City to the same fate that had claimed Pompeii if she didn't do something but it was so powerful so overwhelming she couldn't match its power no matter the cost but she had to match it she couldn't…_

_That same burning she'd felt in another life._

_Being the hero always came at such a terrible cost…_

_Oblivion. Golden oblivion…_

With a start, Tara Markov awoke.

She nearly banged her head on the ceiling, so violent was her awakening jolt. She blinked the remaining traces of sleep from her vision as her brain adjusted to the wakened state of reality. She yawned and rubbed her eyes: she'd been having those musing dreams again. She didn't really care for them; it sounded more like someone was talking through her ABOUT her rather then her own mind describing her own self. No, she didn't care for them at all, especially the flashes of the alternate dimensions she'd watched on one of Cyborg's devices one time. Dimensions where she'd failed, had fallen into the clutches of Slade and become his apprentice, and paid the price by becoming a statue. Or worse, the one where she wasn't manipulated, the one where she was a self-righteous, self-loathing psychopath…ugh. It was true what one didn't know couldn't hurt one at times.

Tara opened the car door and got out and stretched. Some may have found sleeping in the front seat of a car uncomfortable, but compared to some of the places Tara had slept in her dark days before the Titans, it was as comfortable as a mattress full of down. She rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and then shivered in the chill dawn air and got back in the car, closing the door.

She felt the vehicle whir to life beneath her, as a screen in the dashboard popped on.

"Good morning Lady Terra." The computer chirped in a soft electronic tone.

"Morning Kitt." Tara replied, as she pressed a button. The stick shift in her car, a modified Pontiac Solstice convertible, slid aside as a bottle of water popped up. She took it and drank, glad for such conveniences. In truth, her car was really only a Pontiac Solstice in appearance: everything beneath it was custom built by Cyborg. He had a customization bug that just never went away: after building his T-Car and a few clones he'd gone to work customizing every other car the Titans had (which was surprisingly a lot: Tara could only wonder where Robin got all the money from to buy all the vehicles the Titans used on the job and off the job), sticking a million and a half gadgets under each one_. Pimp My Ride _on steroids, the modifications included a multitude of defense options (which is why Terra had no problem pulling her car over on the side of the road and just sleeping in it, if anything meant her any trouble she'd be well prepared and well guarded for it), attack options (though since this was supposedly to be a trip where she relaxed and introspected instead of looked for trouble, so she shouldn't have to delve into those…though she was tempted at times), and comfort options (including, if needed, a built in toilet, Cyborg thought of everything). These alterations included a personal computer for each car, though Cyborg picked the names. Tara was fine with that, thought for some reason she could swear the name KITT sounded familiar.

"Where am I again?" Tara asked, as she put the water bottle back in, and the mechanics hidden in every aspect of the car whisked it away as the stick shift slid back into place.

"You are 17 miles out of Sheridan, in the state of Arkansas. You are 27 miles away from the nearest town, Malvern, though you may find numerous tiny communities and villages along the way. You are 73 miles from Pine Bluff. You are 104 miles from Little Rock. You are 458 miles from Fort Smith…"

"Yeah yeah, ok, ok. Enough." Terra said, as she pressed her fingerprint onto the main screen, which started the engine (no one would be hotwiring THIS car). It looked to be about 8 or so in the morning.

"Do you have any destination in mind Lady Terra?"

"Wherever the road may take me." Terra said, as she reached out to fiddle with the radio.

"Lady Terra, if you are going to put the radio on, may I ask if you find something other then the Top 40?"

"Uh…what do you suggest?"

And immediately, Beethoven's 9th came on.

"…Nooo, don't like it, it's forcing my brain to make connections…" Tara mock-groaned.

"Fine. Sigh."

_"My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard…"_

"Ugh! I'm sick of that one myself!" Tara said, and took the knob to try and find her music herself.

_Whirrrrr-KLIK._

_"London is flooding, IIIIIII live by the rivaaaahhh…"_

_KLIK._

"_An' you light mornin' skyyyy, burnin' luhuvv…"_

_KLIK._

"_Knew a crack dealer by the name of Petah, had to buck 'im down with my nine millimetah…"_

_KLIK._

"I miss the good old days." KITT lamented.

"…You were programmed last week."

"You got sick of that milkshakes song in a week. Things change in a week."

"Point. And people wonder why no one buys music any more, instead just downloading what they like from whatever file sharing service they can find." Tara muttered, and hit a button to make the roof go down. Once it was down, and the now warmer air was whistling through her long blonde hair, she tried the radio again.

_"Don't tell mah heart, mah acky-breaky heart…"_

"AHHHHHHH!" Tara yelped, and turned the radio off entirely. "Forget this. Kitt, go to autocruise."

"Yes Lady Terra." KITT said: she had programmed the type of address herself, for obvious reasons. The AI promptly took over driving the car, while Tara looked around in the glove compartment for a road map. While she'd earlier said she'd go where the roads took her, now she was more in the mood for a set destination.

"We're in Arkansas, right?"

"Yes lady."

"Right…" Tara said, trying to keep one hand on the wheel as she used the other to open the road map. This quickly became near impossible as she realized the road map had been folded roughly 10 jagillion times and when fully unfolded was roughly the size of the average football field. Well, maybe not, but it was damn big.

"Argh, who designs these things?" Tara said, as she took her other hand off the wheel to open the map and make sure she had a firm grip on it so it couldn't be blown away.

"I believe they are not designed to be read while driving, Lady Terra!" KITT offered.

"Yeah, but that's why I have you Kitt!" Tara said, as she opened the map in front of her, her vision completely consumed by the giant canvas. "Now, where am I going to go…where am I anyway, this damn thing is so small…" Tara said, as she turned the map around, squinting at it. "And who names these places? In five miles we've got Rebel County, Podunk County, Moonshine County, Lynch County, Earnhardt County, Grits County, Rebel Moonshine County, Lynch Rebel County…wait, are they all just running together? Is that just one long name there? KITT, do you have eyes?"

"Not in the car, no."

She heard a squeal of brakes as a car tried to overtake her, only to see the driver was a blonde reading a map without looking at the road or holding the steering wheel. Tara barely noticed: KITT was driving, and the AI could probably drive better then she could.

Of course, not everyone knew that…

Tara's head jerked up from the map as a siren sounded behind her, and she looked up to see a familiar pair of flashing red and blue lights in her rear view mirror. For a moment her stomach clenched, remembering bad times…

…But those were over. Surely she didn't have much to fear. After all, she was a Titan now…a Titan without powers on an official sabbatical…damn. Well, she stood for law and order, so it wouldn't look good for her to personally disobey it.

"Pull over Kitt."

"Yes m'lady." KITT said, and did so. The police car parked behind her, and Tara drummed her hand on the wheel as he got out and approached. He looked like any average policeman in a less traveled area, and by that we mean he looked like he had more then a small streak of redneck in him.

"…young lady, perhaps I was wrong, but were you jus' driving yer car while holding a road map right in front of yer face?"

"Uh, well, yeah, but uh…you see…"

"Little missy, that's incredibly dangerous. People could have been killed."

"Wait no no! You don't understand! This car drives itself!" Tara protested.

"Right, and I'm the Green Lantern." The police officer replied.

"…There are enough of them, I'm not 100 sure whether or not you're being sarcastic." Tara said before she thought her answer through.

"Get out of the vehicle ma'am."

"Nuts." Tara said, as she did so. "Really, the car drives itself!"

"Miss, please, cars can't drive themselves."

"Yes, I get that a lot." KITT said. The officer started.

"…Aheh…uh, I've got some good friends in the automotive industry?" Tara offered. The police officer began looking inside the car to see if anyone was trying to screw with him.

"While your suspicions are understandable, and your disbelief as well, I can assure you that her fantastical tale is quite true." KITT said. The officer jerked back as the car spoke.

"…Prove it. Drive and do a donut."

The engine roared and Tara's car took off, and then sharply turned as the car slammed on the brakes, spinning around in a near perfect 180 before roaring back towards the pair.

It stopped four inches from them, on a dime, making the officer jump again.

"…Ma'am, do you know that witchcraft is an offense punishable by death here in Dickery County?"

"I am a machine, not magic, officer."

"Look Devil Car, I believe it were Arthur C. Clark who said that technologah, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic frum those what don't unerstan' it."

"…Wait…you understand that quote well enough to use it rhetorically…but not enough to understand what it actually means." Tara said in low exasperation.

"That's a bit of irony that made mah English teacher shoot hisself."

"…Ok, fine. How do you prove witchcraft?"

"Well, we toss the car in a lake. If it floats, it's a witch."

"And what happens if it sinks?"

"Then it's a good, God fearin' car. And we give it a state funeral. Which in Squidbilly County involves a 21 gun salute. 'Course, most of the national guard can't count, so odds are he'll get more."

"Lady Terra, I don't wish to confront my own mortality yet…" KITT said.

"Don't worry Kitt, you won't have to." Terra said. "…wait, Squidbilly Coun…? …And how do you plan to get the car there?"

"That does sound like a lot of work…well, since yer white an' all, I suppose I could assume yer innocent and letcha go. But DAMNED if my supervisor ain't been watchin' me like a hawk lately. Naw, I'ma gonna have tuh take yoo in."

"Here's fifty bucks." Tara said, producing some bills from a pocket.

"WHAT! That is an insult to mah honuh! The men of mah family have been police officers in Goocher County fer three generations!"

"Hundred bucks." Tara said, producing more money.

"I don't take yer liberal jew-run money! Now git in the squad car!"

"200."

"Honuh is worth about 150 on the open mahket. Deal."

"Done." Terra said, as she handed it over. "…Wait, I need to know, where is this? I thought this was Dickery County."

"We don't take kindly to back talk in Wiffle County!"

"Just what county is this? Do you even KNOW?"

"The countuh's name isn't germaine to this convuhsation."

"Fine. Where were we?"

"…Ah forget. Let's start over." He said, adjusting his sunglasses. "All the same ma'am, your magic car and the thing we didn't just do or not, I'll have to see yer license and registration."

"Uh…okay…but before you think it doesn't look anything like me, I was trying out something different the week I got that photo done…" Tara said as she handed over her license.

The police officer stared at it.

"…Is that a profanity tattooed on yer forehead?" The officer said, turning the card sideways. "And a dog collar? And black hair?"

"I was going through a brief phase where I listened to a lot of Creed." Tara said in a low embarrassed tone.

"…I'm afraid that due to the considerable differences I'm gonna have to see a signed letter from yer legal guardian."

Tara paled.

"Is there a problem?"

"Uh…I…don't remember who they are. I kinda…woke up on the streets two years ago…alone…with no memory."

"Oh, and now you have a magic talking devil car! A likely story! We have a place for storytellers in Bull Weevil County!"

"Ahhhh! No! I have a talking car because I joined a superhero group!"

"A superhero group? You look like a strong breeze could blow you over!"

"I am! I…just…wore out my powers…and they don't work now…"

"Another likely story!"

"Ahhhh!" Tara yelped, as she reached into her pockets and fumbled, producing a random ID in her panic.

"…A signed letter from Batman saying that you passed his basic 'minimal survival course'?"

"…Yes?" Tara replied, having no idea if that was actually on the paper.

"…Good enough for me! Enjoy yer stay in Possum County!"

Terra nearly facevaulted.

"I thought you just said this was Bull Weevil County."

"No, that's just where we keep the state prison." The police officer said, as he headed back to his car and drove off. Tara stood there, still a touch stunned.

"Well, that worked out about as well as could be expected Lady Terra." KITT said as Tara eventually got back into her car.

"Yeah, but all the same, I think I'll be keeping my stay in Cow Punch County or whatever the hell this place is called as brief as possible."

"If that was the border patrol for the Deep South, I have to imagine that what we may encounter in the interior will be worse."

"Kitt, what could be worse?"

* * *

A few hours and counties later… 

"I did WHAT?" Tara yelled, having been pulled over by another cop who looked like he'd just left a casting call for _Dukes of Hazzard._

"You didn't send a horse in front of your car to warn horse riders of your car's presence! We don't take kindly to that in Roadkill County!" The sheriff said.

Tara stared, trying to see if it was a joke. But the police officer's face remained completely serious.

"But I…you…never mind." Tara said. "And please, tell me are just making that name up."

"A smart mouth, eh? We don't take kindly to that in…"

"Uh, look, is that pig on fire?" Tara said, pointing.

"WHAT!?" The sheriff yelled, spinning around…as Tara leapt back into her car.

"Punch it Kitt!"

"Will do, Lady Terra!" KITT replied, and put the pedal to the metal.

"HEY!" The sheriff yelled as Tara roared off in her car, as he ran as rapidly as he could (considering his gut) back to his own and grabbed the radio. "Breaker breaker, this is Sheriff Scottsdale, we got ourselves a 1059!"

"A pig on fire!?"

"No, that's a 1060. A 1059 is a false reporting of a pig on fire."

"Damn! You need backup?"

"Hell yeah, get all the boys at the bar. Maybe the mayor too, if he's sober."

"Lady Terra, while I can understand the reasons behind your rash action, was it really wise to flee from law enforcement, even ones who were as enfeebled as those were?" KITT intoned.

"Trust me Kitt, they called me a smart mouth, well if that was a general examination of the state of the average government employee around here, anything that I said is pretty much a smart mouth," Tara said as she drove down the rural dirt road. "And people think I'm going to be stupid because of my hair color."

The siren sounded behind her, and Tara looked up at the flashing red and blue lights, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

"Ok Kitt, Cyborg gave you all those neat toys, why don't we bust some out to help me get away?"

"I'm sorry Lady Terra, but while you may disagree with the local law enforcement they are still law enforcement and hence I cannot utilize the defenses. Damaging their car or initiating a crash might still cause harm to the driver."

"Damn! Ok fine, use your Turbo Boost!"

"I would Lady Terra, but you used up all the power in the Turbo Boost batteries making smoothies."

"DAMN IT!" Tara cursed, and checked her rear view mirror. "Ok, not finished yet…but damn…damn…ok, what would Robin do?"

_With an expert hand, Robin hurled Birdarangs that smashed the cop's windshield into a spiderweb of cracks…as he, with the other hand, hacked into the Justice League's Watchtower satellite teleportation system. A moment later, he and the car disappeared._

"…Ok, that doesn't help…what would Cyborg do?"

"_THIS IS FOR SEGREGATION!" Cyborg bellowed as he armed his sonic cannon and blew the cop car away. "Man, that got me hungry. That's one nice thing about the south: no tofu!"_

"…Okkkkkkkkk, not really appropriate. What would Starfire do?"

"_Oh, flashing lights that accompany festive electronica music like the clubs of the cities! But the only vehicles of this planet I know who exhibit such behavior are…the trucks of frozen cream! I must halt immediately to purchase some iced lactation confections!"_

"…Sigh. I love you Kory, but…ok, what would Gar do?"

_"Wait, if I just turn into a bird and fly away, I can escape them easily!"_

"Great, I'll just turn into a D'OH! Argh, ok, what would Raven do?"

_Raven turned and glared at the police car. It were shrouded in black energy, then flung into the distance. Looking as pleased as she could, Raven turned and began meditating._

"_Azarath Metrion Zinthos…Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"_

_Unfortunately, the car had not been switched to auto-cruise, and hence crashed into a tree._

"I mean really, she's ALWAYS meditating…argh, doesn't help. Ok, what would Terra do?"

_And Terra imagined herself imagining herself imagining herself imagining herself…_

"Ow, my head!" Tara said, giving her forehead a light smack to bring herself to her senses. "Ok, not a good idea. What would Sophie do?"

"_Dum de dum!" Sophie said as she drove. "I'm sooooooo hungry! I think I'll turn myself in for the food in prison."_

"Heh heh heh…" Tara chuckled.

Jedi-And reached down from the heavens and gave the blonde a good smack.

"OW!!!!!!!!"

"_**At this point of the continuity, Nigel hasn't even been introduced, let alone Sophie. Behave."**_

Tara grumbled something about authors interfering where they didn't belong, and then sighed.

"Okay…ugh…what would…Noel do…" Tara said with great hesitancy.

And suddenly, Noel (in Tara's mind that is) popped up in the front passenger's seat.

"Look here Blondie. You should have known better then to negotiate with a human being. Humans suck and are flawed. Except for me. And the jury's out on Raven. But you? You suck at this. Just turn yourself in before you embarrass yourself. You suck. Blondie."

"OH SHUT IT!" Tara yelled.

"No." 'Noel' replied.

"Look, do you have anything USEFUL to say?"

"Rarely." 'Noel' replied. "But when I do, I figure out a way to beat the enemy. I think I'll quote you a book you've never read."

"You're a figment of my imagination. You can't quote a book I haven't read."

"…Touché. Blondie. Who sucks."

Tara punched 'Noel' right out of her car. He hit the ground with a crash, rolled a few times, and then looked up as the cop car drove towards him.

"I am reminded of the words of…"

The car ground Noel under its wheels, even as it swerved and came to a stop from the action of running over a body.

"Wow, never thought I'd wish Noel was here." Tara said, as she drove on. "Well problem…wait a minute he was a figment of my imagination, how could he possibly slow down a cop car? That doesn't make a lick of sense!"

The cop car suddenly re-appeared in her rearview mirror, now with several friends.

"D'OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Tara cursed. "Well…by process of elimination…what would Rob do?"

"_YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Rob bellowed in a rebel yell as he flew through the air after a mighty jump off a cliff._

A slow smile spread over Tara's features.

"Kitt, where's the closest gorge?"

"Why Lady Terra, there is one coming right up ahead, but please do not tell me you are…"

"LET'S BURN RUBBER!" Tara yelled as she threw down the stick and stomped on the gas. "EAT MY DUST!"

Tara's car jumped ahead a bit, though the cop cars were in close pursuit, but coming right up ahead was a sign pointing to an off-shoot of the road that lead to the gorge (convenient, that) and Tara yanked the wheel towards it and drove on. Thankfully there was no traffic on these roads besides her and the cops chasing her. How strange.

"Lady Terra, I really must insist…" KITT said in a pleading tone as Tara approached the gorge.

"Oh come on Kitt, you only live once!"

"No actually due to the fact I am a mechanical AI I really don't fall under the same guidelines of living as…"

And with that Tara drove off the edge of the gorge, and just like that she was flying through the air.

"Oh dear." KITT said.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Tara whooped, as the car soared across the gorge.

* * *

_**Well I don't know about you, loyal reader, but Tara Markov better know what she's doing, or sprout wings.**_

_**And one final reminder before you start sending angry emails: do you know what the words 'broad parody' mean? Think about that, y'hear.**_


	2. Part 2

_**Part 2: Terra Nova**_

_**When we last left Tara Markov, she was jumping through the air in reference to a famous show most TT watchers have never heard of and don't care about because it's old. And since it would be rather counterproductive for her to crash and burn in the bottom of the gorge, you probably know the end result.**_

"Hahhhhhhhhhh!" Tara whooped as she crashed down on the other side of the gorge, her car bouncing a few times. "Whoohoo!"

"Ow. Ow. My axels. My precious axels. And my shocks. Don't forget my shocks." KITT complained.

"Wait a minute Kitt, didn't you just point out you don't experience life the same way humans do? So why would you be hurt?"

"If you really must know…"

And then, suddenly, the cop cars crashed down behind Tara, who looked in shock at her rearview mirror.

"WHAT? NO! THAT NEVER WORKS FOR YOU!" Tara said in stunned surprise.

"NICE TRY YANKEE, BUT WE INVENTED THAT MANEVEUR!" The head car said on his intercom, and Tara found herself right back where she started.

"This is because I punched your original character, isn't it?"

Perhaps.

"Damn it, I'm out of Titans to ask."

"If I may make a suggestion Lady Terra, you could ask me what I would do."

"…Why didn't you offer me a possible solution in the first place!"

"You never asked."

Tara stared at the car, and then she, still driving along while being chased by the cops in the back roads of Arkansas, turned the wheel and lightly sideswiped a tree.

"Nooooo! My paint! My lovely blue paint!" KITT wailed.

"Oh be quiet Threepio. Now if we're done being clever, Kitt, what would YOU do?"

"I would activate the Anti-Hillbilly Chase Device."

"…We have an ANTI-HILLBILLY CHASE DEVICE?"

"Father Cyborg is nothing if not thorough. His motto is, be prepared."

"I thought that was the Boy Scout's motto."

"The little creeps stole it from him! A lawsuit is being filed as we speak!" KITT retorted.

"…right." Tara said. "Ok Kitt, activate the Anti-Hillbilly Chase Device!"

"Okay then!" KITT replied, as the trunk popped up and a small package was launched behind the Solstice, hitting the ground swiftly.

And erupted into an inflated sign as the cop cars approached. An inflated sigh with a big arrow pointing to the right and three words.

FREE PORK RINDS

All the cop cars screeched to a halt.

"…It's a trick!" Cop 1 said.

"We can't take that chance!" Cop 2 yelled back.

And all the cop cars turned and drove off in the direction of the arrow…even though that meant they were driving right into the woods.

"Wow, sure are a lot of trees on this here road!"

" 'Course! Whoever wants t' hand out pork rinds has t' make it a challenge!"

And with that the cops were gone.

"Huh. And here I thought everyone in the South was illiterate." Tara said, and drove on. This time, she was going to make sure she actually put distance between herself and trouble, even if she had to keep driving all day.

* * *

Topeka, Kansas.

In the end, she only had to drive until mid-afternoon.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE OUT OF GAS?" Tara yelled at her car, as she found herself stuck in front of a green light in a busy intersection in the middle of the fairly large city. "I thought you ran on solar power or cold fusion or something!"

"No, you're thinking of Father Cyborg's Jive-Talking Moped."

* * *

Titans Tower.

"Yo honkey, change the channel! They got the new 50 Cent video on MTV2!" A moped parked in front of the TV said.

"I really…REALLY wish this thing didn't have unlimited power supplies." Noel said through clenched teeth.

* * *

"While I have extraordinarily good mileage, Lady Terra, I run on gasoline like any other car. And my supplies are utterly exhausted." KITT said.

There was a storm of horns honking behind Tara now, as she groaned and leaned on the steering wheel. She was really missing her powers right now.

"Don't worry, I've already called the police for assistance." KITT said.

"Tell that to them!" Tara retorted, jerking a thumb behind her.

Cars began driving around Tara's prone vehicle, most of the occupants having some choice words for her as they drove past. Tara sighed deeply again.

She heard the burps of a siren as a police car showed up. Finally. She could explain her situation (and leave out the fact of her talking car this time) and they could get her a tow truck and maybe spare her enough gas to get to a station.

* * *

Several minutes later.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M UNDER ARREST?" Tara semi-exploded.

"You got a warrant on you from Rust County, and I'm afraid that a warrant is quite valid everywhere, Ma'am." The most recent police officer to speak to Tara said.

"No way! I was being railroaded! They were using some law that surely is unconstitutional but the sticks haven't gotten the message yet! Kinda like they haven't gotten the fact they lost the Civil War and should quit complaining about it." Tara groused. "How the heck did you get that so fast! Most of those counties looked like they would be lucky to have more then one working phone, let alone a fax machine!"

"Ma'am, I've been to Tire Springs County. They take the crime of 'driving-while-Yankee' quite seriously there. And when there's a will there's a way." The officer said. "Please don't make a fuss. It's better for everyone that way, as I really don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me?" Tara growled. After doing the tango with monsters, superhumans, demons, and demi-gods, she had a feeling it would take more then the average police officer to hurt her, even if she didn't have her powers…wait.

If there had been a wall nearby she would have repeatedly slammed her head against it. Why hadn't she done this before?

"Officer, we can get this straightened out right now. I am a member of the Teen Titans, based out of Florida…"

"I thought they were based in California."

"DON'T LOOK AT ME, THE AUTHOR WAS THE ONE WHO DIDN'T CHECK PROPERLY!"

They didn't confirm it until Season 5, does it really matter what state it's in?

"You made Titans East make no sense."

BE QUIET. YOU'RE INTERRUPTING THE STORY ENOUGH.

"Right. Anyway, I'm currently on vacation. But to prove it, I will show you the exclusive communicator that members of my organization are given." Tara said, as she reached into a pocket…

And came up empty. Arching an eyebrow, she checked another pocket. Nothing.

"Uh…just a sec…" Tara said as she began patting herself down. The police officer watched, apparently not all that amused.

In retrospect, Tara thought, she was probably lucky the cop didn't think she was going for a gun when she turned and began searching her car, but he didn't. Probably underestimating her due to her frail build. She got that a lot, but now wasn't the time to get mad at it, she had to find her communicator, hell, she probably hadn't realized she could use it before now because of a subconscious reasoning that the rednecks she'd encountered wouldn't have been impressed in the slightest, but surely that wasn't the case here in a relatively big city in the Midwest where was it where was the damn communicator…

"Where did I see it last…!" Tara snapped to herself.

And then…

* * *

A time when things seemed simpler.

"Hey Terra, bet you can't throw your communicator into the garbage can here!" Beast Boy challenged.

"You are ON!" Terra retorted, and unclipped the piece of electronics and hurled it through the air.

It fell, nearly perfectly, into the can.

"BOOYAH!"

"DOH!"

"Well, time to get it back…" Terra said as she started walking towards the can.

The alarm went off.

"Titans, assemble! The city is under attack!" Robin yelled as he ran past the pair.

"Let's go Terra!" Beast Boy said.

And she had.

And in all the chaos that had followed…she'd forgotten all about it.

* * *

"…Oh." Tara said, back in the present when she really needed the communicator. "Right."

She seemed to have a bad habit of doing stupid things like that. Like when she and Beast Boy tried to do a magic show and her 'turn something on fire into an animal by smothering said fire with a pot' set off the fire alarms and the sprinklers. Though she had protested that the fire alarms were far too sensitive to be set off by so little smoke: she'd stuck to that opinion even when Robin had informed her most buildings had smoke detectors that sensitive (and she still thought it was stupid that a few wisps would set off a drenching torrent of water: talk about overcompensating).

"Come now Lady Terra." KITT said very quietly so the officer wouldn't overhear him. "Most police officers are reasonable. Surely you can find some measure of proof of your claims."

* * *

Some time later.

"I'm telling you, I'm a superhero!" Tara yelled in the holding cell of the police station she'd been taken to. Unfortunately, it was the kind that was placed right next to the desks of a lot of officers, and doubly unfortunately they were the kind of officers who dealt with the dark side of their job by being smartasses.

"Oh really!" The closest one said. "What's your name? Stick Girl? No-Tits?"

The male officers around him found that uproariously funny. Tara sighed: workplace equality was really a long, slow process.

And she also realized she wasn't going to get anywhere just claiming who she was. That had gotten her in this holding cell and her car impounded. She needed more solid proof, and yelling and screaming just made it easier for her to be dismissed as a nut.

"Okay, okay, yes, I don't look like the average giant muscled huge tit stereotype you might be used to, but I am a superhero. I'm part of a famous team. Let me out, I'd like my phone call according to my rights. Give me a vid phone, I saw you have at least one, I'll prove it." Tara protested.

Surprisingly, the police officers did let her out, though Tara had a suspicion it was more to give themselves further amusement then any of them actually taking her at her word. Well screw them, she might not have her communicator but she knew her Tower's exclusive phone line. She'd get Robin or Cyborg on, they'd explain everything, they were good talkers. Hell, even Noel the Prick would do: for all his assholery he also was a good talker…and prone to yelling at people he considered stupid…maybe it would be better if she didn't get Noel, she didn't need him to get her tossed back into the cell because he thought the police were stupid for not recognizing her on sight…

In the end, she got none of the above, as the police officers clustered around her as she dialed the very long number. The phone rang, several long rings…

"Y'ello?" A sleepy-eyed Gauntlet answered, having gotten up at the crack of 4 PM.

"Rob?" Tara said in surprise.

"…OH YEAH RIGHT! That guy's not a superhero! He doesn't even have a costume!" One of the officers said.

"Huh?" Rob said. "Who is this?"

"Oh enough wasting our time you quack!" Another officer said, and hung up on Rob.

"HEY!" Tara yelled. "You can't do that!"

"Hey, not our fault you called the wrong place." Officer 3 said. "Back in the cell."

"Who was that Rob?" Robin asked as Gauntlet stared at the now blank computer screen.

"…I think it was a random costume critiquer. Watch out Tim, we may be getting a bunch of junk mail soon." Gauntlet said, as he yawned and headed into the kitchen.

"No! That was the right place!" Tara yelled as she was escorted back towards the holding cells. "That was Robert Candide! Gauntlet! Check the city of Ubertron, he's in the official files!"

"Ma'am, we're not the FBI, we don't have files on every city and every weirdo who tries to defraud us."

"I wasn't defrauding anything! He's a HERO, like me! He was right next to me when I got my Congressional Medal of Honor! Didn't you see that? I was live on TV! The president had a special order signed so my teammates and I could get it despite not being in the military! IT WAS ON IN PRIME TIME!"

"I think that was American Idol night."

"DOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!" Tara cursed. "Fine, news just isn't on TV! Go plug it into the net, you'll get a whole bunch of results featuring me!"

"You know how much money and time we'd waste if we spent half an hour processing every prisoner with a story!? GET BACK IN YOUR CELL." Another officer, this one not as nice as the others, snapped at the blonde.

Tara's eyes grew angrily cold.

"Fine. I'll prove it the old fashioned way. Get me a rock." Tara said.

"Why?"

"I'm a geokinetic."

"A what?"

"I can move rocks with my mind! Because I'm a superhero! Just give me a rock, any rock!"

"Here ya go." One of the officers said as he handed her a smooth pebble.

"…Why did you have a rock in your pocket?" Tara said in some surprise.

"I believe that's none of your business."

Tara stared, then shrugged and put a rock on a nearby desk, stepping several feet back from it.

"All right…I'm not asking to move a mountain here…just come to me…come on…" Tara said, as she focused, trying to find the familiar sensation within her when she used her powers.

The police officers watched, amused.

Tara concentrated even harder, feeling the stress beneath her eyes and in her hands, but she had to prove who she was and get out of this craziness…

And suddenly, the rock began to move, ever so slowly.

The cops' eyes were drawn to the motion, as Tara kept concentrating, it was working, all she needed was a tiny spark…just a spark…

"Hey, the brace shifted." A cop said, and leaned beneath the desk and adjusted something.

A pile of books that held up one corner of the desk. The pebble abruptly stopped moving.

The police officers erupted into laughter as they realized Terra hadn't moved the rock at all: it had moved because it was on a very slight grade. Tara gritted her teeth at the sound and kept concentrating, trying to reach out and seize the rock, but her brain couldn't even move the tiny speck a millimeter. Her powers were well and truly dead.

For the first time, Tara really grasped the ramifications that they might never come back. And it extended beyond being laughed at by police officers and trouble with more backwoods law enforcement. Without her powers, she couldn't rejoin the Titans. She wasn't Robin, trained for years in combat and other skills: she needed her abilities. And…

…where else would she go?

Even if the Titans took her hand and tried to guide her, what other place did she belong? Her past was a cipher to her. And if she stayed with the Titans, she'd be a liability, a weak link in the chain.

She'd have no identity again…and this time would be worse, because she'd know exactly what she had lost.

Had she come to this realization in a more private moment, she might have broken down weeping, but in her current circumstance, the horror of the realization emerged as anger instead.

"GODDAMN CHEAP GOVERNMENT DESKS!" Tara yelled, and kicked the side of said source of her curse.

She probably could have reacted better, for while the cops did laugh again at that, her violent action triggered their trained instincts when dealing with suspects, and Tara, with one lone comment of 'Enough of this shit' was promptly seized and taken (not as gently as she would have liked, at that) back to her holding cell, where she was once again locked up.

"No! You have to believe me! Really, please!" Tara asked, but the officer who had escorted her just walked away, although several hung around the cage either because they worked next to it or because they wanted to pester her some more. "Just look me up on the Internet! I'm not some crazy girl who's just making up a story! Come on, do I look like some street trash?"

"But you couldn't get our rocks off." One of the officers said. More semi-chauvinistic laughter.

"My powers are worn out!"

"Hey Blondie, wanna talk to MY pet rock?" Another suggested. Tara's eyes narrowed as they laughed again: she was getting VERY sick of being the butt of the joke.

"And you should be VERY glad they're worn out at the moment." Tara said, and stalked away from the front of the cage to sit on the hard bench. The cops continued to chuckle and snort, which Tara crossly tried to ignore.

"Right, powers. She probably thinks by geokilnantic or whatever she claimed to be that that means the whole Earth revolves around her." One officer said.

"Hey, if she's so strong, it probably can. Of course, we've seen how strong she is." Officer 2 said. "Doesn't she know we don't get metahumans around here? Metahumans go to Metropolis, or LA, or anywhere. Hell the closest hotspot in this area is Dakota City and that's way off. This is just the average small town with the average stupid stories."

The officers agreed, apparently having decided Tara was a nut. She growled to herself.

"Ungrateful bastards. I nearly killed myself to save them, me and all my team, and this is the thanks we get. No wonder Savior's so damn bitter, if this is all we ever encounter."

"I know mannnnn…" Said the hobo in the drunk tank next to Tara, who clearly belonged in said tank due to how he looked, smelled, and talked. "I fight off the Mushroom Men of Venus, and they think I'm drunk'r something."

"SHUT IT BATSON!" A nearby officer said as he rapped on the bars of the drunk tank.

"At least Stick Girl's in proper company." Officer 1 near the cage said. "So what, we wait until the accusing authorities come and file a complaint, or pick her up, or whatever?"

"Less paperwork for us."

"Wait…should we really just turn her over to a group based on their personal claims?"

"They're still officers under the law. How inaccurate could they be?"

* * *

"Shoot 'em up, shoot 'em up, shoot 'em up!" Redneck Cop 1 said as he and his fellows drove down the roads out of their county, heading for Topeka.

"No wait Cletus, not so fast, first we have to try her before a jury of her good ol' boys!"

"Oh right! H'yuck yuck!"

* * *

"…I don't think even the reddest of rednecks still says 'H'yuck yuck' Molinari."

"Well still, what's she going to do here? Fight for truth, justice, and the American way? That's what WE'RE for, since no fancy pants metahumans bother showing up here. And we're doing fine without them!"

"And what if some DID show up?" Tara called.

"Oh we have some protocol, but we've never used it! Never had to, never will!" Another cop said.

"Hey, does anyone hear that? Like in the movies, that whistle from when things fall?" Another officer said.

"Oh please, like fiction ever gets it right…"

The roof exploded like someone had dropped a bomb on it, and that wasn't very far from the truth as the round form crashed through, sending a tremendous cacophony of noise blasting through the station.

Tara was on her feet in surprise before she even realized what she was doing. She actually reacted better then most of the cops, who were shocked into inaction.

Ironically, that was one of the lesser surprises.

At least in comparison to what happened next, as a wall exploded from the punch of a massive stone form, even as another exploded in a blast of fire.

For a moment, Tara thought her friends had somehow tracked her down and had decided to make a point in freeing her. She only had that thought for about a second though, as the figures responsible for the destruction of the walls walked in.

One she didn't recognize: he was a massive figure cut literally out of stone, a bluish-purple stone with darker rock 'sideburns' and a small line of a goatee. He wore red pants and a black tank top. Normally, she'd have nothing to fear from him…but as mentioned, her powers were completely gone.

But she recognized the other one, she'd seen him briefly in the files the Titans had on villains, and her guts clenched. He looked human, clad in a red shirt and light brown cargo pants without a belt, with a head of spiky red and orange hair and an unpleasant look of contented nastiness on his face.

Francis Stone.

Better known as the pryokinetic villain Hotstreak.

No metahumans ever showed in Topeka?

Apparently there was a first time for everything.

"Hey there piggies! I'M IN THE MOOD FOR PORK RINDS!" Hotstreak declared, and thrust out his hands as fire exploded and flew from them, exploding throughout the station as the cops finally stopped standing around like statues and acted.

By panicking.

Then again, if she were them, Tara probably would have done the same.

"Metahumans?" One of the cops said in amazement.

"Looks like it! Standard protocol when metahumans attack!" Another officer said. "…What is that again?"

"FLEE LIKE COWARDS AND CALL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!" Another cop yelled, and the police promptly did just that as they fled from Hotstreak's assault.

"Owwwwwwwwwwww…" The 'bomb' said as he stood up: he was clearly not human. In fact, he looked more like an armadillo, though he wore purple shorts with a black stripe on them to distinguish he wasn't exactly an animal either. "Onyx, you said that wouldn't hurt, but it hurt, it-YIPE!" The armadillo man yelped as he was forced to duck away from Hotstreak's latest tossed fireball. "WATCH IT FRANCIS!"

"Oh shut up Carmen." Hotstreak said, thoroughly enjoying himself as he sent the cops running.

Not all of them were running though, but they were getting nowhere. Hotstreak sent fire lancing at any police who tried to shoot him, and the big stone man, the armedillo-man had called him Onyx, simply ignored the gunshots as he smacked any cops who shot at him aside with his big stone hand.

As another wall shifted, and abruptly melted as another police officer stopped, having been running past the wall when it had abruptly liquefied.

And one last form emerged. She was a black girl, wearing a faded lime green shirt and dark green pants, with her purplish-black hair done up behind her in two elongated clusters.

"Heya pig." She said.

The cop swung his nightstick at her.

It went right through her, her form shifting around the weapon like she was made of vapor. And as it turned out, she was, as her legs abruptly transformed into a purplish-pink trail of gas, as she flew up and blasted a powerful stream of gas that bowled the cop over with a painful looking landing.

"Down in the dirt where you belong." The girl said nastily.

"Whaa-ha-ha! I forgot how much fun it is to roast piggies when we don't have that killjoy Static around!" Hotstreak said, as he continued to throw fireballs and fire blasts around like it was going out of style.

"Yeah, good thing this place is right by the bank! We can take care of any problems we may have first thing! But Puff, you said throwing me wasn't going to hurt!" Armadillo-man yelled.

"Shut up you idiot! You have a damn bulletproof hide, act like it!" Puff snapped back. "There ain't no heroes in this here city, and hence there's nothing to stop us from stealing a few mill to get back on our feet!"

"Somebody do something!" One police officer yelled.

"Get the SWAT team!"

"The SWAT team ran away!"

"Man, they really need to start paying us more!"

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" Tara yelled, as she banged at the bars of the holding cell.

"Wait, now I remember my magic word!" The hobo in the next cell said. "SHAPAM!"

And suddenly there was a golden flash of lightning that grabbed the attention of all the villainous metahumans that had picked that day and time to come visit Topeka, take in some of its sights, and a lot of its money.

"Oh thank god, I won't be needed here…" Tara said as she rubbed her eyes, blinded by the light. "…Wait…isn't the codeword Shazam?"

"Danger? CAPTAIN HERO IS HERE!" Said the hobo, now transformed into a muscular figure wearing blue and yellow. "Beware villains!"

And to punctuate his words, Captain Hero punched the side of the drunk cage, which pretty much tore the whole holding structure out of the wall as Tara yelped and covered her head as bits of stone plastered her.

"Holy shit there is a hero! RUN AWAY!" Armadillo-man yelped, as he did just that out one of the holes in the wall.

"Quick, stop the villains!" Tara ordered. "Oh I hope the fact he got the word wrong doesn't cause any problems…"

"Activating Hero Shield!" Captain Hero declared.

…And then he grabbed Tara and held him up in front of her, interposing her between himself and the villains.

"…This…is why metahumans…should not be allowed…to drink." Tara growled.

"Look out! He's going to throw a blonde at us!" Hotstreak yelled.

"Geezus, if he's gonna treat random bystanders like that, who knows what he'll do to us! META-MEN RETREAT!" Puff ordered, and the three villains followed Armadillo-man out the hole in the wall.

"Ha ha! And once again, Captain Hero saves the day!" Captain Hero said as he dropped Tara.

"No wait, they just ran away, they're still…!" Tara protested.

"A job well done! CAPTAIN HERO AWAY!" Captain Hero declared, and flew up, crashing through the roof, and Tara yelped and curled up as some debris crashed down on her.

There was a rough silence in the smashed police station, broken only by the distant noise of many honking horns.

And then Hotstreak poked his head back through the hole.

"Hello?…Anyone there?…What the hell…?" Hotstreak said, as the rest of the villains, called the Meta-Men, returned, looking as confused as the pyrokinetic. "He just flew off!"

"Does this mean we should rob the bank again?" Armadillo-man said quietly.

"…Hell yeah." Puff, who was apparently the leader, said with some nasty satisfaction (she seemed to have an overall nasty tone to everything she did, it seemed, something that was mirrored in Hotstreak). "Let's go Meta-Men! Hotstreak! Onyx! Carmen-dillo! Before this day is done we'll carve our names on this pathetic city!" Puff declared, and once again the villains left. Their first objective, smash the police station (and the police) was complete. Now for the other objective: loot the bank and actually get away because there were no superheroes to stop them. 'Captain Hero' aside, and it was probably best he was gone.

And…

Tara coughed on the dust as she pushed the rubble off herself and stood up, feeling the ache in her shoulders as she looked after where the Meta-Men had run off.

"Damn it…" She said, as she rubbed dust from her eyes. Much to her surprise, she found herself faced with a dilemma, one she'd never thought she'd ever have: the desire to stop this. The dilemma, of course, was that without her powers, she was even less qualified then the police were, even if she was more experienced in the matter.

She should just use the chaos to run.

…Like she always did…

No, this wasn't a matter of lack of control. She had no power, and besides she had been held against her will anyway. She should let the police handle it, or someone else…

…Yet if she ran off, innocents might die.

Just like they would have died during the Last Wish. And to stop that…she'd blown out her powers in the first place.

Hadn't that been a big enough sacrifice? Did she have to offer her life up on the alter as well? The world had shown very well how much it respected what she'd give up…

And yet, that wasn't what being a Titan was about. For all the fun and games…if you dug, what you would ultimately find was responsibility.

And responsibility was an extraordinarily irritating burden.

"All right. Fine." Tara said to herself. "On the one hand, I have a moral imperative to stop crime. On the other hand, I'd die if I try and fight them in my current state. There must be a middle ground…of course! I'll just call for help again!"

Tara threaded her way through the wrecked station, trying to find a phone.

"Come on, I can at least do that, where's a phone, a phone…a phone!" Tara said as she found one. It worked, so she carefully plugged in the same number.

Unfortunately, life seemed determined to kick her in the teeth.

"Hello, you have reached the Teen Titans Crisis Hotline. We are currently saving the world, or having pizza. Leave us a message, and you will be rescued in the order in which we received your call." Robin's recorded voice said.

"DAMN IT!" Tara yelled as she slammed the phone down. "Maybe I should have vetoed that when it was presented as a phone option. Of all the…wait, they're too far away to help anyway…but the Justice League isn't! They have teleportation tech! And I have a number for them too! What was it…" Tara said, as she typed out the also very long number.

She got it right, at least.

"Hello, you have reached the Justice League Crisis Helpline. We are currently saving the world, or fighting among ourselves again. Leave us a message, and you will be rescued in the order in which we received your call."

Tara stared at the phone.

"…THEY ARE ADULTS! THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE THAT! WHO THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT!"

* * *

"I'm Batman."

"Flash, I do not sound like that." Batman said without amusement.

"No, I think he got the tone perfectly." The Green Lantern known as Guy Gardner snarkily commented.

"Hmmm, I wonder if it would lose its ring if the expression was changed to 'One punch again, one punch again.' " Batman mused out loud. Guy paled.

"…So, how about them Lakers?" Guy said in a frantic attempt to change topics.

"It's not the same since Bryant and O'Neal's clash of egos ultimately drove O'Neal to Miami." Batman commented. Flash stared, amazed that Batman did anything except brood.

Guy took it another way.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH! LISTEN UP! Kobe is a HACK! A HACK!"

WHAM!!!!!!!!!

"One punch. Again." Batman said.

* * *

There is a certain dread coldness that comes over one when they realize they are alone. All the more terrible when the person knows what it was like to have others by one's side, in many aspects…and to find when it is truly needed, it is unavailable.

And so Tara Markov found that chill creeping through her being, as she realized that there was no help to come. She couldn't contact her team. She couldn't contact anyone else. According to the police, there was no local metahuman talent, and that 'Captain Hero' by now seemed almost like a surreal dream, unsure if it really happened. And the police were so used to their normal crime that they chose to cut and run rather then stand and fight.

Well…didn't they have a right? Banks were insured against loss, weren't they? There wasn't a bank in the Western world that didn't have some kind of arrangement in case of robbery, what with superhumans being around since the Second World War and banks being a primary target for several decades? Why risk their lives against a threat against which they were so outclassed? Let them rob the bank, get them when they tried to spend the money or have it cleaned…

…But…

"_I don't get it." Terra said as she said, bored, in a chair. There were definitely aspects of her training she could do without, like Noel's ass-puckering nitpicking excuse of it, insisting on perfection the first time and nothing less. But she didn't much care for the talking aspects of it either, where a Titan sat her down and tried to explain to her the more 'vague' aspects of the life. She had a feeling that was a Noel idea as well. "A bank robbery's a bank robbery, isn't it?"_

"_It is Terra, but in the sense that tapping you on the shoulder and punching you in the face are both touching you. Does that make them the same?" Robin said. "There are differences Terra, and the difference is, a truly professional bank robbery will rarely involve our kind: it will simply be too quick to respond to unless by some chance you're already right on top of the situation. Professionals go in and get out ASAP, and they're a dying breed. There are easier illegal ways to make money, and more money at that. No, bank robberies are more often then not committed by amateurs. And one of the primary signs, especially of superhuman attacks, is that the robbery isn't really about the money. Oh, that's what it may look like on the surface, and I'm sure the criminals believe that too…but in a way, it's more of a revelation of power. The criminals don't just want money, they want status, and in their own underdeveloped minds, they equate status with chaos. And that's what makes them so dangerous, Terra. They don't care what they have to do, or what happens along the way, while getting the money. That in essence is what we're really trying to stop. Because being empowered and criminally-minded tends to breed a dangerous lack of empathy, Terra. And if they don't give a damn who gets hurt in their robbery, then it's up to use to do so, for the sake of those who cannot defend themselves against such things."_

"_And what if they decide to? What if they decide that's what they wanted?"_

"…_Terra, you're still a bit green. So all I can say is, that's a question you have to answer yourself. It's one of the few things we can't simulate in some form. In the end, in such a situation, when your morality is faced with your mortality…if it ever comes to it, you'll know what to do. In the end, only you."_

And here she was. Only her.

Faced with a choice.


	3. Part 3

_**Part 3: Terra Nullius**_

From a young age, Officer Bill had been convinced that he had precognitive powers. He did the right meditation practices, he ate the right herbal supplements, and he read the right books.

Of course, he was an idiot. But occasionally, he got lucky with his 'precognitive' hunches, which were actually brought on by an untreated case of ADD.

And as a result, on a cracked computer screen, moments before everything fell apart, the follows events had occurred…

_**ACCESSING FILES-VILLAINS. PLEASE ENTER PASSCODE.**_

_**(typetypetypetypetype) **_

_**ACCEPTED. PLEASE SELECT DESIRED FILES.**_

_**HOTSTREAK: Francis Stone aka F-Stop. Mutant via exposure to mutagenic compound known as 'Quantum Juice' laced into tear gas during the result of a gang war known as 'The Big Bang' in Dakota City in the Midwestern states, resulting in metahuman powers: one of many that was affiliated with this condition, dubbed by the media as 'Bang Babies'. High grade pyrokinetic, able to manifest and manipulate fire.**_

_**CARMEN-DILLO: Real name known, assumingly Carmen Something. Mutant 'Bang Baby' (See above). Animal-human hybrid, said animal being an armadillo. Bulletproof hide, capable of using his rolled up body as a weapon. Poor hand to hand skills, weak-willed and cowardly otherwise.**_

_**ONYX: Name Unknown. Mutant 'Bang Baby' (See above). Body composed of rock (evidence is lacking if it is actually onyx quartz though), which grants greatly enhanced strength and durability. Constant partner of Puff (see below).**_

_**PUFF: Name Unknown. Mutant 'Bang Baby' (See above). Capable of transforming her body into a gaseous state, granting her flight and intangibility. Gas powers also allow high impact projections of gas from her hands, and the ability to exhale knockout gas or a potent acidic smoke. Gaseous form, however, is vulnerable to liquids. Formed team with the three aforementioned 'Bang Babies', the 'Meta-Men'.**_

**_Status: Currently At Large_**

* * *

Well, to be technical, the Meta-Men's status was 'just outside the First National Bank of Topeka, raising hell'.

Despite one officer's claims, the SWAT team had not run away, and was in fact engaging the four criminal metahumans. But the officers of the law found that their guns were rather ineffective against two bulletproof and one intangible metahuman, and that their tear gas wasn't as useful as a neutralizer when said intangible metahuman could apparently produce some kind of neutralizing compound of her own. Add that to the animal-meta bowling through any officers he could be pointed at like they were the proverbial ten pins, the deadly acid and knockout gas exhaled by the female meta, and the prodigious production of fire (all for offensive purposes) aimed directly at them, and the police officers quickly found themselves outmatched and overwhelmed.

Onyx put the cherry on the cake by hoisting up one of the SWAT armored vans and, ignoring the bullets being poured into him, hurling it into two police cars. That was enough: the police officers retreated, carrying their wounded with them. Hotstreak, cackling gleefully, aided their swift flight by blowing up the other SWAT Van and a police car.

"BURN PIGGIES, BURN!" He crowed, and then blew on one finger like the classic Texas gunslinger.

"Forget the pigs, Francis, we have a vault to loot!" Puff ordered as she flew down and blew her corrosive smoke on the entrance of the bank, melting it to slag.

"DON'T CALL ME FRANCIS YOU BI-!"

"Whatever!" Puff retorted, as she and her crew strolled into the bank. "You and me are gonna weaken the vault door if we have to, then Onyx is gonna finish it so we don't damage the…"

Puff trailed off as she stopped, surprised.

The vault door was wide open, requiring no sophisticated or primitive lockpicking. The Meta-Men could just scroll in and help themselves.

"Da phuck?" Puff said, for a moment wondering if it was a trap. But how could a random bank that had never seen metahuman activity possibly have the foresight to set a trap for any criminal proceedings of such?

Then again, Puff hadn't thought some punk kid with electric powers could have ever beaten her once too, and wasn't in the mood to take chances.

Fortunately, Onyx had worked with her long enough to get good at reading her moods, and perhaps more fortunately, while most of the bank's employees and customers had long fled out other doors, some had not.

Onyx located one hiding under his desk and dragged his screaming, mewling form out to his team.

"All right, listen asshole. What gives with the free buffet?" Puff snapped, as she glanced at Hotstreak and he generated some fire on his hands to really drive home the point they'd better like his answer.

"Ah! The vault…we don't…actually lock it!" The employee managed to gasp out.

"…What?"

"We don't lock it unless it's being inspected most days! It's just easier!"

Puff looked at Onyx, who shrugged and smacked the manager type on the head, knocking him senseless, and then, after a shoulder roll that produced a very loud cracking noise that made Carmen-Dillo wince, he strolled up to the bank vault, seized the door, and with a snarling roar tore the massive metal barrier off its hinges and hurled it across the bank, crushing most of the teller stands.

"Because I can." Onyx said quietly in regards to Hotstreak and Carmen-Dillo's confused faces.

The two quickly got over their confusion, as they realized the bank was open for business, and ran it, ripping open security deposit boxes, stuffing money and other valuables into large bags Onyx had been carrying on his bag, and generally revealing in their lawbreaking like the young punks they were.

"All right, hustle hustle! We need to keep moving before the pigs get organized and call in some help! Twenty more seconds!" Puff yelled, and then melted the final wall of safes with a carefully controlled acid blast, destroying the doors without damaging the goods inside (mostly). Onyx scooped and stuffed what he could into his final large bag, and then the four headed back out, lugging their loot. They'd stolen a large truck before making their move: they'd take their ill-gotten goods to it before moving on to a new target.

At least, that had been the plan, until the villains stepped out of the bank and found themselves confronted.

Not by a regrouped police force.

Not by any superheroes who had been alerted or happened to be passing by.

And not even by the titular blonde.

Instead, they found the usual reaction to carnage and destruction: the media, and lots of them. Where the police had fled, the news crews had swarmed in, in the usual complete disregard to their safety. When they were covering a war or something, said disregard seemed a touch noble. When it meant getting footage of several dangerous criminals with superhuman powers, especially when there were no superhuman counteragents in the vicinity, and ESPECIALLY when they could easily get said footage from a distance or a news helicopter, but instead chose to charge right up to the group like they were celebrities at a movie première rather then criminals in the very midst of a felony, well, other words came to mind. Like 'stupid'. And 'suicidal'. But hey, those 24 hour news channels aren't going to make their own grist for the mill.

"You gotta be kidding me." Puff commented, and then flinched as a mass of flashbulbs went off even as cameras trained in on her group.

"Don't they know who we are?" Carmen-Dillo commented.

"No. They must have heard YOU were on the team." Hotstreak snarked.

"HEY!" Carmen-Dillo retorted…and then realized something. "OH NO! WE'RE ON THE NEWS! NOW THEY'LL KNOW I WAS INVOLVED IN THIS!"

"Well DUH, dumbass, how many giant armadillo men are there? OF COURSE THEY'LL KNOW YOU WERE INVOLVED IN THIS." Puff snapped.

"But…"

"Shut up! That's not why we can't be seen on the news! It's the fact that it'll bring heroes down on our heads like a swarm of goddamn locusts!" Puff cursed.

* * *

"So Skeets, should we go in?" Booster Gold asked his robot companion and fellow time traveler from the 25th century as he watched the bank robbery unfold on his TV.

"Negative. Only one of the three major 24 hour news stations is represented." The small floating droid replied.

"Yep, waste of time."

* * *

"…damn." Puff said in honest disbelief. How did she know about the aforementioned scene? You tell me.

* * *

"This is Kia Carter, reporting live for 27 News!" A black reporter said to her camera as she was jostled by her many fellows. "We currently know nothing about the status of the robbery: we don't know who is robbing the bank, what they want or just what the response of the police will be when they return, but we will continue reporting live, giving you up to the minute information…"

Miss Carter really should have had her eyes in other places. Like the four metahuman criminals who were clearly incredibly pissed off at being filmed.

"This is News Corporation, we give you the news as it develops…" Another reporter was saying as Terra cautiously drove up to the massed media, having liberated KITT from the police impound yard (which the police had thankfully put some gas into her empty car to drive to, she'd have hated to try and find a gas station at the moment) with her teeth gritted. She'd hoped that maybe she could have used KITT's defense systems to take out or at least distract the Meta-Men, but with all the reporters swarming around there was far too much of a risk of collateral damage.

"Damn it. Now what Kitt?" Terra groused.

"If you can acquire some cover, Lady Terra, you can sneak up on the villains and perhaps disable one."

"But there isn't any cover!"

"I shall make one." KITT said, as the headlights on his front slide aside to reveal twin mini missiles. "I hate 24 hour news anyway."

"Kitt! You can't honestly be considering…!"

A blast of heat and force struck Terra's face as the news van in front of her exploded in a giant fireball, as she ducked to avoid shrapnel. She blinked, and then slowly raised herself up to look at the flaming chassis.

"Kitt…you didn't…there were people in that van…"

"Newscasters count? Damn, so much for the first law of robotics…oh god, I forgot all about the first law of robotics…" KITT said.

Terra was about to say something else when a fireball streaked past her and struck a nearby car, and she ducked again as the vehicle went up in a destructive blast.

As she lay there, the realization occurred to her that she hadn't seen the stream of white smoke that indicated missile launch come from KITT when the car had been blown up. That, and the fireball that had just flown past her, suggested that it had not been KITT but the fire-manipulator, Hotstreak, that had blown up the van.

Indeed he had, and still was, as he continued to hurl blasts of intense heat at the reporters and their vehicles, and they finally got the clue that maybe they shouldn't hang around and ran for their lives.

"Uh Kitt, about that first law of robotics…" Terra said as she sat up.

"How could I forget? It's built into me. Any robot that violates the three laws of robotics is doomed to a slow, agonizing, and error filled death…I, am not long for this world…" KITT moaned, and then much to Terra's surprise he actually started weeping, or at least made the appropriate mimicked sound effects of a human doing so.

"No wait Kitt, you didn't blow up that car! Besides, I don't think there were any people in it." Terra said, having no idea if she was lying.

"What? Oh, then I'm fine." KITT said, as his 'crying' abruptly stopped.

Terra stared.

"Although I will have to be debugged when we return." KITT added.

* * *

"You idiot! Why the hell did you do that?" Puff yelled at Hotstreak as he continued to hurl fireballs.

"Only one national news organization? Oh, I'LL GET THEIR ATTENTION." Hotstreak snarled. "Besides, it's fun to blow stuff up."

Puff looked at the 'trigger-happy' metahuman, and then noted that Carmen-Dillo was riding Hotstreak's destruction by doing muscleman poses and generally acting like a fool. Especially considering moments before he'd been upset over caught on camera. Apparently he'd gone a snap 180-degree turnaround in the past ten seconds from disliking to mugging.

"I'm SURROUNDED by IDIOTS." Puff muttered.

"You and your old man." Onyx quietly replied. Puff glared at him.

"Until you opened your mouth, I wasn't referring to you."

* * *

"Ho boy…" Terra said, as she watched the chaos around her. She pondered if there was anything she could do in all the fire and smoke and running…the smoke. Well, at least her cover had been provided.

"Okay Kitt, listen, I'm gonna run up and distract them, then you drive up and hit them with some laser nets or something and if that doesn't work we run like hell!"

"As you wish, Lady Terra." KITT said, as Terra jumped out of the car and tried to find a route to the criminals that wouldn't result in her getting fried or trampled.

"Be careful of that guy's fire blasts!" Terra said, as she spied one and ran off.

"Oh do not be concerned my lady, those blasts are wild and only effective because of the lack of any sentience in their targets. With such an unexamined rate of inaccurate fire that young metahuman could not hit an elephant at this dista-"

A fireball exploded at KITT's front and KITT found himself being flung backwards with a squeal, landing with a crunch on his rooftop, his wheels spinning in the air.

"…General John Sedgwick of the Union Army, burn in hell." KITT grumbled.

* * *

"All right enough, ENOUGH!" Puff snapped as she slapped Hotstreak's arms down. "Quit wasting your energy, you've made your point!"

"Wasting my energy? Who cares?" Hotstreak smirked. "The cops scattered like piglets! Who's gonna stop us?"

………..

…………………

……………………………..

* * *

The Watchtower.

"Not me, I just like watching." Superman said.

* * *

"…A new development in the Topeka robbery!" One of the dumber reporters yelled into his camera as destruction finished raining around him. "It's official: Superman…is a dick!"

RRRRRRGGGGK!

Noel: Okay look, I really hate to hijack this story…well not really, but for the sake of convenience and what some idiots consider humor are we going to have every hero that appears act dangerously apathetic?

(HEAT VISION'D!)

Noel: ……….owtch.

* * *

"Still got it." Superman said as he turned and held out his hand to Batman. "Pay up."

"Don't think just because you could blast a child from orbit that you're necessarily great." Batman said as he handed over money.

"What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? I am the motherfrick'n Superman!"

"I keep telling you Clark, that's not going to catch on."

* * *

"………DAMN." Puff said.

"Hey you better watch it, Ron Simmons is going to sue." Hotstreak commented.

"Oh shut up." Puff snapped. Which gave Hotstreak the opportunity to throw off a few more fireballs. "OKAY, ENOUGH!"

"Yeah, run, you forth estate bitches! You better fear the Dillo!" Carmen-Dillo taunted. Had Onyx been next to the animal mutant, he probably would have smacked him over the head for that.

Carmen-Dillo got something almost as bad: an outright suicidal reporter running up to him and sticking a tape recorder into his face.

"And why exactly should we fear you? The world wants to know!" The reporter questioned fiercely.

"Uh…I gots the frickin THREE FOOT LONG CLAWS!" Carmen-Dillo announced.

"So do a dozen other D-List villains."

Carmen-Dillo decided to let his actions speak for him for his next and final reply and headbutted the reporter, sending him flying back and tumbling down the stairs.

"LET ALL FEAR ME, FOR I…Owwww, my head." Carmen-Dillo said, clutching his temple.

"Funny, I'd expect that would be the LAST part of you to suffer some kind of injury." Puff said, and looked at Hotstreak. "Are we done?"

Hotstreak seemed to ponder it a moment…and then fired four more quick fire blasts, though by now everyone was gone and the streets were so awash with smoke he probably just blew a few holes in the concrete.

"Okay, done now." Hotstreak said, swinging his bags of ill-gotten gains back onto his shoulders.

"Look Francis…"

"HOTSTREAK!"

"Whatever, if you're going to do that at every place we rob you can just piss off right now." Puff said as the group headed down the stairs of the bank.

"Oh come on Puff, don't act the innocent with me, I've seen you raise plenty of hell."

"When it was feasible! Damn it Hotstreak, you keep screwing around, we won't NEED any damn superheroes to show up, the cops will be able to beat us!"

"Yeah, right, what are they going to do, make us laugh ourselves into submission? Stop thinking precision assaults and start thinking party, Puff."

"Yeah! This city is ours!" Carmen-Dillo declared, having finally gotten over his headache.

Until the large rock that had been thrown through the air slammed into the back of his head.

"OWWWWWWW!" Carmen-Dillo shrieked as he fell to the ground. "You can have it back! Take it! Owwwwwwwww…!"

"What the, did we just get attacked by David?" Puff said, referring to the slingshot-using bible hero.

"You wish…"

Terra thought her dramatic stride out of the smoke was pretty good. At least she'd managed to do it without the pungent air causing her to break into a fit of coughing. And the obscurity of said smoky air probably hid the slight tearing her eyes had and were still going through due to said smoke. Yeah, at least a 7.

Besides, she knew a trick or two about misdirection, and she was pretty sure the villains would focus on the large smooth stone she was tossing up and down in her right hand, the brother of the rock that had just brained Carmen-Dillo (and damn that was lucky).

"What the…YOU?" Hotstreak said in disbelief as he looked at Terra. Well, at least one of them had some idea who she was, or thought they did. She'd take it.

"On average there's about 10,000 metric tons of rock, concrete, graphite, tar, and other such stone materials in a city block. That's all pointing right at your head!" Terra said. It was a pretty good line. Definitely good for the time she'd had to think it up. She had no idea if it was any way accurate, but then again she'd never heard of anyone actually pulling someone's head off and using their neck as a toilet either.

"Who's this bitch?" Puff snarled, clearly pissed that the Meta-Men's attempt to avoid any superheroes had failed (and she was discounting Captain Hero: she still wasn't sure if she'd hallucinated that).

"She's from that Florida superkid team! Some earth girl name…Gaia!"

"Terra. Close enough." Terra said, as she gave her rock another toss.

"I thought they were located in California." Puff said.

"That joke's been done already." Onyx said quietly.

"Well SORRRRRY!"

"It doesn't matter where we come from! I'm here, and so are you, dammit." Terra said, phrasing her sentence so she sounded annoyed at that fact. "You guys just can't stay away, can you? I was on vacation, damn it." Perfectly cool. Like there was nothing wrong.

"Then screw off!" Puff snapped.

"Sorry, can't. Union rules." Terra said. "But you're right, I'm really not in the mood for a fight. I got enough of that at home. How about we make a deal? You put down the money, and go away. And we'll all walk away considerably happier."

"…WHAT?" Puff snapped. "Are you HIGH?"

"I wish." Terra muttered. "Look, we all know how this will go. You'll yell about kicking my ass and we'll fight and we'll get all dirty and in the end you'll end up in jail, quite possibly missing several pounds of flesh. Hell, I took one of your number down by throwing a rock at him. That doesn't bode well for you."

"He's an idiot! And so are you if you actually think we're going to do anything YOU say you stupid bitch!" Puff threw back. Terra winced inwardly: she hadn't actually expected the group to fall for her bluff, but it would have been nice.

"Yeah, you really think you can take us ALL on?" Hotstreak added as his arms and hair exploded into flame. Terra could feel the heat from the fifteen plus feet distance she was from them. Yeah, definitely not good.

"You think I can just throw rocks?" Terra retorted anyway. "When Mount Saint Helens blew, the energy released was 27,000 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb! Do you think I'd need even a FRACTION of that to take you guys down?"

Well, at least her snappy banter was still firing off nicely. Even if she'd stolen that line from the disaster film _Volcano,_ but hey, not EVERYONE could come up with grandiose taunts on the spot, thank you very much.

Still, she suspected the time for talk was rapidly running out. Where the hell was KITT?

"Bring it on, baby. Because paper beats rock…!…because you can light paper on fire…and…well…you know what I mean!" Hotstreak snapped. Well, at least she hadn't stumbled verbally yet.

"Why does this always happen?" Terra said, as she tried to hide the way her eyes were darting around. "Why do you people always want to do it the hard way?"

"It's what we're good at." Hotstreak smirked.

A low, cold fear was starting to bloom in Terra's gut. If KITT didn't distract her opponents soon, things were going to become incredibly ugly.

"No, what you're good at is hard time. And I came here for some time off. Really. Last chance on that offer, then you'll be eating dirt."

_Kitt, where are you? PLEASE!_

And then suddenly, with a quiet sentence from Onyx, it all fell apart.

"I believe she has no powers." The stone giant said.

"…what?" Puff said, as she looked at Onyx. "What do you mean? You mean she's just standing there with a rock and nothing else?"

"If she could control rock to the degree that she claims, she could have easily taken control of me and laid you both out while you were yelling at her. She has not. Therefore, I strongly believe that even if she did have such powers, she does not have them now."

Puff stared at Onyx, and then turned a cold glare at Terra.

She tried to keep, as the saying went, a stone face.

Apparently not good enough, as Puff's coldness suddenly shifted into a nasty, cruel grin.

"Heh heh heh heh heh…"

"Crap." Terra said.

"Cook her." Puff said, and Hotstreak smirked himself and threw up his arms.

So Terra did the only thing she could think off: she threw her other rock.

Apparently, Hotstreak had equated 'realizing her bluff was called' with 'paralyzed with fear and unable to take any action at all', because he clearly hadn't expected her to do that.

"GAH!" Hotstreak yelled, as he dodged to the side. The rock bounced off Onyx's impassive form.

It didn't stop the pyrokinetic from hurling his fire blast.

But it threw his aim off enough so that when Terra dove to the side, instead of hitting the ground where she'd just been, it hit what was behind her.

A fire hydrant.

Which promptly exploded, as Hotstreak's intense blast of heat instantly converted a large amount of the first part of the emerging water from liquid to gas, the result of which was a large cloud of water vapor/stream blooming up the erupting stream and freshly obscuring everything anew.

"GAH!" Puff yelled, recoiling as the water vapor bothered her unique body chemistry. "You idiot!"

"Hey, I didn't see YOU picking up my spare!" Hotstreak retorted.

"Forget it! Find her! Powers or no powers, we take the hide of a superhero and our reputations are MADE!" Puff said. "This just makes it more fun."

"I hear that." Hotstreak said, as fresh fire exploded on his limbs, and the hunt was on.

* * *

Oh god, what the hell had she been thinking?

To her credit, Terra didn't let her fresh panic make her run herself into a wall, or trip over one of the potholes Hotstreak had made with his earlier blasting storm, but that meant little to her as she ran for her life, not even bothering to find out what had happened to her so called 'partner' KITT. Indeed, that question was one of the furthest things from her mind.

She'd had a choice, and it was now abundantly clear to her she'd made the wrong one. What had possessed her to go out there without her powers and beard three well-known and dangerous criminals? Superhero life was risky enough WITH powers, what on earth had she been thinking trying to attempt being a hero without them? The only reason she wasn't already cooked through was because of luck, and her good fortune was rapidly running out: she suspected it had hit bottom when Hotstreak had blasted that fire hydrant and given her some fresh cover. Now her only option left was escape, even if it meant she ended up back in jail. She wasn't about to expect any mercy from the criminals she'd…

Terra felt the intense heat behind her and threw herself onto the ground at the last second as the fireball whipped over her and exploded against a nearby wall.

"Titan…!" Hotstreak's voice called out through the thick mist (man, the steam was thicker then one would expect. Maybe it had mixed with the remaining smoke to give it its more fog like consistencies? And if not what were they putting in the water in Topeka? Well, whatever the reason, Terra wasn't complaining). "C'mon girlie! Come out and plaaaaaaay!"

So he hadn't aimed at her and missed. He'd fired into the smoke and almost gotten lucky. Even as her panic clawed at her, Terra figured her luck would probably work better if she didn't stay still, as she partially got up, ran over to an overturned police car, and hid behind it.

"What's the matter, you were all ready to rock before!" Hotstreak called out again, as Terra pressed her back against the car, hyperventilating and hoping that if he tossed out any more random fire blasts it didn't hit the gas tank of her cover. "Man, I hate teasing bitches."

Silence, except for Terra's gasping air and thundering heart, which she could swear sounded as loud as a stampede of water buffalo.

She heard the whooshing noise of air as Hotstreak fired off some more blasts, and she winced as she expected a sudden blast of heat and pressure, and then oblivion as her cover car exploded, but it didn't come: he'd apparently been aiming elsewhere. That didn't reduce the direness of the situation an iota though.

And it wasn't like Terra hadn't been in tight spots before. There'd been her Titan missions, but she'd had friends there. And there'd been her life on the road, her past a cipher and her future not looking much brighter. You ran into a lot of bad sorts when you were touring a country by your feet and your thumb, and Terra had only escaped a few life-shattering possibilities by the wild manifestation of her powers, the same powers that had always stolen her stability as well.

Now she had neither. No friends, and no powers. Not even a car. Just her fear.

…fear…

"_Is going to come."_

"_What?" Terra said, looking up from her semi-slumped posture: despite her best efforts she still found the 'talking' parts of her training dull as dishwater. That hadn't stopped Robin from doing them with her though. Later in her life, she'd finally appreciate just what that meant._

"_Fear is going to come. In our life, you're going to be afraid."_

"_Well, duh…"_

"_No Tara, you misunderstand. I'm not saying you will because of your life. It applies to all of us. In the Titans and beyond. We will all know fear."_

"_Oh come on. They can't all be afraid. Surely Bats has never been afraid." Terra said semi-dismissively._

"_You'd be wrong there."_

"_But why?"_

"_Because he knows, perhaps more then any of us, the realities of this world."_

"_Fine. Superman can't be afraid. He's frickin' super-everything…"_

"_Even if, and I doubt it, Superman has never felt fear for himself, he has surely feared for others. This is a part of this life, Tara, and you need to understand that. Not just for our sakes, but for yours."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because people are going to expect you to not be afraid. They're wrong. In fact, I'd be far more concerned if you WEREN'T afraid."_

_Terra stared._

"_Can we go back to learning deductive reasoning? That was actually starting to make some sense to me."_

"_Tara, as uncomfortable as you may be being afraid, you need to heard this. It's important. A man called…"_

"_Oh god don't. Please don't quote. Noel ALWAYS quotes. And Noel's a goddamn ASS." Terra groaned._

"_Heh, sorry, it's appropriate." Robin grinned, as Terra groaned again. "But an author named Robert Heinlein gave the best example of why you will be afraid. 'Courage is the compliment of fear. A fearless man cannot be courageous. He is also a fool.'"_

"…_Okay."_

"_But, as another saying goes, the devil is in the details. People have been trying to prepare themselves for fear for centuries, and it rarely works. Each human mind is different, and hence so are their reactions."_

"_So why are we here?"_

"_Well Tara, you should know what you're getting into. Because if it ever comes down to the worst, well…fear may be inevitable, and lack no certain solution, but I know this. You can let it motivate you, or you can let it paralyze you. I won't blame you if I can't teach you the former and you fall victim to the latter, but I hope I can lessen the chances of that. You can't stop fear. But you can stop from giving in to it."_

Oh, it was so easy for him to say that. He was the scion of the goddamn BATMAN after all. She was just a girl…

…and he'd told her he understood that.

Now here she was under fire and she was completely forgetting everything…but damn it, she wasn't him! The fear just came! It was so strong. What…

"…_the point?"_

_Raven calmly looked at Terra as she sat across from her._

"_Meditation, once you learn how to do it properly, calms the mind and the soul, and helps you find your center. Basically, it serves as a filter for the chaos of the world and the ill vibes of our society."_

"_I doubt that. Your boyfriend's with you all the time and yeessssh." Terra commented. Raven's expression did not change._

"_Noel has a flaw in his way of thinking…a weakness that makes him find the harshness of his observations appealing on some level. We're working on it."_

"_You should work harder."_

"_Believe me, I have my limits, and he knows them. So do not worry about me, and give little more worry to how Noel treats you: even if he disliked you enough to try and remove you from the team he'd have no ground to stand on, and he doesn't. He's just…"_

"_An ass."_

"…_that is putting it simply and ignoring some of the subtle aspects, but yes, fine. But that's not your concern Terra. I can look after myself. What we're trying to teach you here is how to look after yourself."_

"_Okay, okay…" Terra said, as she tried to mimic Raven's posture._

"_Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos…" Came Raven's familiar chant, and Terra tried to follow along._

"…_argh, I don't feel any different. I might as well just be sitting here and doing nothing." Terra groused after about two minutes. Raven opened one eye and sighed._

"_Don't try and run before you can walk. This is like learning a combat skill, albeit with more applications then doing harm to someone."_

"_Well, I mean, you're all steeped in magic and otherworldly hugga-mugga. I…I'm just a girl!"_

"…_and so am I, Tara Markov." Raven said calmly._

"…_right, right. Okay, but really, what am I trying to do here?"_

"_Like I said, you're trying to steady yourself, but perhaps you need to shore up your balancing platforms, as it were. See if you can filter out ambient emotions and focus on one. Then try and switch yourself around between opposing emotion states. Perhaps it will help, and it can be useful under certain circumstances. Certain emotions are better then others."_

"_Yeah, Robin gave me the fear lecture."_

"_And it's true. Fear can, if you let it, bog you down. But if you can't quite conquer it, you can always try to seize it and ride it…"_

But how the hell did you do that?

God, she wished her friends were here, and not just because they had powers. But they weren't…

In fact, they'd trusted her to go off on her own, without her powers.

…wait…

Surely they hadn't all thought it was a good idea…

But Robin had thought it was best if she did what she thought she had to do.

Cyborg? He'd given her the car.

Beast Boy? He'd wanted to come with her, but respected her when she asked to go by herself.

Starfire? Was that alien girl even biologically capable of having a malicious thought?

Raven? No, she was aloof, not heartless, and she'd said nothing.

And Gauntlet…if it hadn't been for him, she'd have given into the fear, a fear much like the one that gripped her now, and run, and run right into the arms of Slade Wilson, if so called 'otherdimensional claims' were true, which would have lead her into the abyss. He'd saved her once, surely he had some idea what was good for her.

But Savior…

He hadn't said anything. He hadn't disparaged or put down her choice to go off and find herself. And he certainly wasn't the type to let the recognition of his own failings keep him from pointing out the failings of others, and the way he talked to her he seemed to think she was one big mass of failings. Surely he'd have said she'd get her stupid rear end killed and protested her going off, surely he'd have protested the Titans giving her resources so she didn't have to hitchhike and eat out of garbage cans, surely he'd have protested it tooth and nail because he was so sure she was a failure…

And he'd said nothing…

…of course he hadn't. Who did he ride in the Titans? Her and Rob. The new members who'd joined after him. Like he couldn't tolerate anyone muscling in on 'his territory', even though he sure as hell wasn't a founding member himself.

Of course he'd said nothing! He'd seen this as his chance! He must have been sure she'd get into trouble and he'd be rid of her!

Well, SCREW HIM! She'd survive just to spite him, the son of a…!

"I'M GETTING BORED BITCH!" Hotstreak suddenly yelled, and Terra was snapped out of her growing outrage by the nearness of the voice. She'd been so involved in her mental recollections and processes the past dozen or so seconds she'd almost forgotten about him. But he was still there, and he was almost on top of her.

The fear returned…and in reality, had something not happened immediately afterward, Terra's attempt to subconsciously wrest her fear into anger by irrationally blaming Noel and thinking he wanted her dead would have been pricked by said reality and burst, and chances are the fear and panic would have come roaring back and reduced her to a fetal position, leaving her a sitting duck for her enemies.

But for once, reality favored her in the next sentence Hotstreak tossed out.

"You know, considering your little performance and how damn flat you are, I expected you'd have SOMETHING approaching balls!" Hotstreak taunted.

His words washed over Terra. Was he calling her…damn it he was calling her boyish! She HATED it when people made fun of her in that vein! She couldn't help her damn metabolism, damn it…

And that fresh burst of anger broke through the paralysis, as Terra realized Hotstreak was right around the side of the car: within seconds he'd have her in view.

"AHA!" Hotstreak yelled, as he jerked around the car with a fireball at the ready.

And found no Terra.

"What the…bitch!" Hotstreak snapped, having been sure his prey had been hiding behind the car. He hadn't heard any screams from his earlier random shots, which meant his target was still alive, most likely, and probably hiding somewhere. Hell, he was SURE she was nearby, and he knew that the longer he took one of his teammates might come along and try and muscle in on his kill, and quite frankly after all the beatings at Static's hands the scalp of that skinny Titan blonde would do Francis Stone's ego a world of good (or bad, as it was), and it just wouldn't be the same if he didn't do it alone. But instead of getting a located target, a scream, and a panicked scramble, Hotstreak had found nothing.

His temper flared, and he almost lashed out and blasted the car.

That might have done Terra some good, as Hotstreak's temper would have caused him to forget that while he would be immune to the heat of an exploding car, he would not be as immune to the shockwave and shrapnel that he would be subjected to from standing right next to said exploding car, but it would have done her much more bad, as she had snuck around the other side and was now cowering behind the vertical trunk, trying to figure out an escape route: if the car had blown up, she'd get the same treatment as Hotstreak, with the added disadvantage that heat worked perfectly well on her.

But, once again, chance finally favored her, as a sudden loud bang came from a nearby alleyway.

Hotstreak snapped his head around, drawn by the noise. His face lit up.

"There you are." Hotstreak said, and headed for the alleyway.

Terra slid down and around a bit more to stay out of the pyrokinetic's peripheral vision, as she watched him head for the alleyway. Apparently he thought she'd made the sound.

_Great! RUN!_

But as soon as the thought came, another did.

_No, wait, he might hear or sense it. Wait._

_But he might turn around and see us anyway!_

_He could turn around and see us no matter what we do…!_

And it was in that realization that Terra came to her decision.

Her decision that, she was sure, clarified that she had finally lost her damn mind under all the strain.

She didn't run.

She didn't hide.

Instead, she quietly picked up another small slab of concrete from the wrecked roads and started after Hotstreak.

How to ensure he didn't see her?

Make him see stars.

Hotstreak had already reached the alleyway and began striding down it. Terra cursed inwardly and picked up her sneaking pace, trying with every fiber of her being to be silent. How did those sneak people walk again…

"_Knees slightly bent. Roll your foot from the heel to the toe." Robin said, and demonstrated by walking through an artificial square of dried out vegetation. It wasn't perfectly silent but Terra had to strain to hear it._

_Her own first attempt was considerably noisier, but not as noisy as normal walking or running, Terra noted._

Apparently she'd retained her lessons better then she thought. Unfortunately, that kind of pace didn't favor speed and she needed it…

Wait, Hotstreak was slowly down.

The red-haired young criminal glanced back and forth in the alleyway. It was strewn with garbage and trash cans, but nothing else. He could have sworn that noise had been a dumpster lid closing.

Terra crept up, her stone raised, her breath held as it roiled in her lungs…

Maybe it had been a door opening and closing? Hotstreak couldn't see any doors. It hadn't sounded like a trash can…

Just a dozen more feet…

Would she hide under all that garbage? Desperate times and all, but Hotstreak would have thought he'd have recognized an abrupt…

And then, after a brief pause, he saw it.

And he turned around.

Terra froze, still about seven or eight feet from the teen. Fortune gave and fortune took away, and unfortunately the sun that peeked into the alleyway was at Terra's back.

Hotstreak had spied her shadow.

"Well. Maybe you do have a set, after all." He said, as Terra stared in horror. She was going to die. She couldn't make it to him in time, the alleyway hemmed her in and wouldn't let her dodge fire: fleeing was out of the question, and she doubted the third time was a charm when it came to thrown rocks.

She was out of options and out of time.

"Thanks for the fun. It'll make a good bar story. Bye now." Hotstreak said, and ignited his right hand.

Nothing left but pain and her last conscious regrets. There were a lot of things she'd wished she could have told people. Like Gar, and Tim, and Rob, damn, she'd let fear get in the way and now…

"_Do it again!"_

"_What?" Terra said._

"_Do it again! If at first you don't succeed and all…" Gauntlet said from where he sat above the training course._

"_Heh. You never read the lesson plan, did you Rob? The general consensus of your teammates seems to be that repeating yourself is a bad thing. The villains will recognize patterns and then comes the running, and screaming…"_

"_Hey, it always worked for me!"_

"_Right. You were the one with the bad guy who threatened people with welding and the the strong bruiser villain who was so stupid he only succeeded on his missions when you reminded him what he was doing, right?"_

"_Hey, don't knock 'em until you fought 'em. Though I do remember that yeah, I once talked the Brick out of robbing a bank by convincing him he really wanted an ice cream. But they're not all like that." Rob said. "My teammates are right, but that doesn't mean they're perfect. Yeah, being able to come up with new avenues of attack quickly, if not immediately, is a near-necessity, but sometimes you'll find the best thing to do is repeat yourself."_

"_Why?"_

"_The villains won't see it coming! They'll be expecting Attack B, so they'll fall right into the trap of Blow A, Take Two!"_

"_And how many times has that worked for you?"_

"_It's why I've beaten Noel's sorry ass at every game of Halo we've played."_

"_Really? Whoo! Anything that works on Noel!"_

"_Really, when it's desperate, sometimes you should just charge them head on. If you're already screwed, no reason not to press the attack, or try something else again. Just because it's been done before doesn't mean it won't work again. And if they KNOW you're screwed, then they never see it coming."_

So, she did what Rob said: she repeated herself.

"Oh well, guess I'm screwed." Terra said, as she tossed the rock down on the ground. "Guess you should get ahead with barbequing me."

"Yes I…WHAT?" Hotstreak said, as his arm stopped in mid raise. "What did you just say?"

"Well you've surely won. I'm helpless and trapped. Why delay?" Terra said, and shrugged. "Is this where I do the futile begging? I've never done it before so I'm unsure how it goes. Do people actually get on their knees or is that just an expression?" Terra said, as she actually started kneeling down by going to one knee.

"…what the, oh no, you're not gonna trick me! What are you planning?"

"What plan? I'm all alone here. You can kill me and get away scot-free."

"…you're bluffing on something!"

"Duh, I tried that already. Did it work? Am I such a blonde to think it will work again?"

"This is not how people about to die act! You're up to something!"

"I'm pretty much helpless, so what does it matter if I am?"

"…okay, just a minute…" Hotstreak said as he dispelled the fire on his hand and began poking his palm with his finger in an expression of mental effort, his face scrunched up in thought as he spoke, thinking out loud rather then talking to Terra. "Okay, if she could do something to me she would have, but she hasn't, therefore her powers are still on the fritz and she doesn't have any help, but on the other hand, she's a blonde, blondes are dumb, and would do stuff like trying to bluff again, but bluffing requires intelligence, and she's already tried bluffing, but a blonde can't bluff, so she is telling the truth, or maybe the truth is a bluff…or the bluff is the truth, ergo I should fry her, but that might produce a bad result, therefore I should surrender…ARGH DAMN IT WHY DIDN'T I PAY ATTENTION IN SCHOOL!"

"Was it your ADD?" Terra suggested.

"…what were we talking about again?" Hotstreak asked.

"Should you fry me or not."

"Oh yeah. I think, yes." Hotstreak said, as he raised fiery hands again.

"All right, go ahead, since I clearly can't do anything."

"Okay."

"OR CAN I?"

"DON'T DO THAT!" Hotstreak yelled.

"Do what?"

Hotstreak stared at the blonde Titan, still down on one knee and looking more like someone engaged in a casual conversation with an acquaintance then someone about to be killed violently.

"…Okay…logically…if you can do something, you'd have already done it. But you might be waiting for me to stumble into a trap. So maybe I should just stand here and do nothing…but then if you are bluffing, you could get away or hit me with something. Or maybe you have a gun…or maybe you're totally unarmed and powerless and buying time…or maybe your powers somehow came back and you're waiting for the best time, or they're going to and…hold on, I need to write this down." Hotstreak said, as he turned to the alleyway wall and, with a fiery finger, began writing on it with soot.

Terra stared, unable to believe what she'd just did: she'd turned her certain death into a classroom lesson on logic.

Of course, she was still stuck in the alleyway, which kept her from running away, and she still couldn't rush Hotstreak or pick up her discarded rock and bean him before he could fry her, and eventually his confusion was going to fade and then she'd be out of options, so really, what could she…

Life answered for her.

And perhaps fitting of the past minute, in the last way she'd have ever expected.

As she suddenly realized the ground was trembling slightly…

* * *

About a minute or so ago…

"Stupid chicky hitting me with a rock, she's messing with the freaking Carmendillo, I'll show her…!" Carmen-Dillo cursed as he stumbled down the road, holding his still aching head while he looked for Terra: he had no idea where Puff or Onyx were and he didn't really care where they were or if they believed him a joke, he was going to get that girl…

And much to his surprise, he found her.

Well, he saw her as he walked past an alleyway, standing there.

"…oh HO!" Carmen-Dillo said. He was about to call out to her, before he spied Hotstreak over her shoulder. Damn it, he always was stealing Carmen's thunder…

Wait, no, not this time. Carmen would deal with her before Hotstreak could. She hit him with a rock? Well then he'd hit her with…him! Himself! His own! Something! Whatever! He was going to roll over her and crush her into paste!

And that was just what Carmen-Dillo set out to do, as he ran backwards across the street and then charged at the alleyway, and just before he reached it he tucked into himself and turned himself into a spinning, crushing ball of doom, barreling right at the back of the young teenage girl.

* * *

Unfortunately, Terra didn't need her powers to sense the vibrations in the ground (kneeling helped), plus Carmen wasn't exactly quiet, as she turned around and saw him barreling down at her.

"HOLY…!"

Terra lunged to the side, plastering herself against the alley way.

"HEY! NO FAIR!" Carmen yelled as he rolled past her.

"…all right, is that correct, I…" Hotstreak said, before he heard the noise and turned. "WHAT THE!"

"I CAN'T STOPPPPPPPPPPPP!" Carmen wailed, as he bore down on his partner, whose eyes went wide.

"CARMEN YOU IDIOT!"

And then Hotstreak jumped to the side as well, and Carmen flew on past him.

"Whew, that was close. Aw damn, I smudged my equations!" Hotstreak complained, and then looked at Terra's stunned face. "What, you expected something else? I saw him coming!"

"…is he always like that?"

"You have no idea."

And Terra, who moments ago had seen a possible salvation, saw herself staring at her death again…

* * *

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Carmen yelled as he rolled out of the alleyway, rolled across the street, and crashed into the building located there.

Which had a sign on it declaring it to be THE MUSEUM OF TRAMPOLINES.

"Now this is the only trampoline ever made with a large spring at the center of it." A tour guide said. "Thus, one hits it and will accelerate without additional effort. It was never sold because it was impossible to stop jumping. Fortunately, to prevent anyone from testing this we have safely propped it against the wall and surrounded it with fuzzy ropes."

"HELP MEEEEE!" Carmen wailed as he came rolling through the room, slammed into the same trampoline against the wall the tour guide had just pointed at, and as several tourists rapidly took pictures he sprang off and went right back the way he had come, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"HEY! I SAID NO JUMPING ON THE TRAMPOLINES!" The tour guide yelled. "Sheesh, it's like he just ignored the fuzzy ropes."

* * *

"Okay, it says I should kill you, but maybe to be sure I should carry the one…" Hotstreak said.

"I'M GONNA PUKE! AHHHHHHHHH!" Carmen screamed as he exploded out of the Museum of Trampolines and headed straight for the alleyway again.

"Wait, why is there even a one…" Hotstreak said, as Terra's eyes goggled as she looked past Hotstreak and saw what she saw.

"LOOK OUT!" She screamed…and then facevaulted as she realized what she'd done.

"What? What is…" Hotstreak said as he turned around. "…huh, Museum of Trampolines, what are the odds."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Carmen screamed.

And Hotstreak jumped aside again.

Terra rolled away as well as Carmen went back the way he came.

"Huh, you actually gave me a warning." Hotstreak commented.

"Uh…yeah…does that mean you can't kill me now?"

"Oh no, I'm afraid that's pretty obvious."

"Nerts."

* * *

Carmen flew out of the alleyway, across the street he'd originally run across, and crashed into the building there.

Sign On Door: OTHER Museum of Trampolines.

"Now, those charlatans at the OTHER Museum of Trampolines will say that they have the world's largest trampoline. That's absurd!" Said a tourguide who looked exactly like the first one except for a mustache and glasses. "WE have the largest working model, mounted here, sideways, on the wall."

And indeed they did.

"And over there next to it is the world's largest slingshot. Unfortunately the donor was suffering from dementia as he donated and installed it at the wrong museum."

"OH NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Carmen screamed as he blazed through the room and flew into the giant slingshot.

Guess what it did. Just guess.

"AHHHHHH MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY…!" Carmen screamed as he flew back out of the room going even faster then he had before.

"…maybe we should invest in some fuzzy ropes." Tourguide 2 said.

* * *

Terra barely got a chance to have the fear come back as she felt the rumbling again and it was quickly replaced by a sense of the surreal as she turned around to see Carmen blazing at her once more.

"Oh screw this." Terra said, and ran.

"So, in conclusion, YES, you are going to be…" Hotstreak said as he began to turn…and Terra ran past him. "AHA! I KNEW YOU WERE TRYING TO TRICK ME! WELL NOW YOU BURN YOU…!"

And then Hotstreak, one hand afire, heard it and turned around, as roughly 1/3 of a second later his vision filled with Carmen.

"Oh-"

KER-WHAMMO!

Hotstreak flew down the alleyway, almost crashing into Terra's back, and even as he landed on the ground Carmen bore down on him.

"-crud."

KER-SQUASH!

"…Oh look, the Ker-prefix. It's migrating." Hotstreak babbled, and then passed out.

Great for Terra, except for the whole rolling 500 pound ball about to crush her, as she threw a glance over her shoulder and then doubled her efforts, even as the ball bore down…

(Raiders of the Lost Ark theme starts playing)

"Huh, what does it say that I more expected the Katamari Damashi theme?" Terra said. How she managed that while running at top speed is something I'll leave you to figure out: the exit to the alleyway was in sight…

But Carmen was almost caught up…

"AHHHHHHHH!" Terra screamed as she reached the exit and dove to the side. She landed on the ground and sucked in a deep, needed breath.

Then she saw the inexplicable fedora that was sitting at the mouth of the alleyway.

"AH! HAT!" Terra yelped, and grabbed it.

Her arm with the hat missed Carmen's wild roll by about 2 centimeters, as he flew out of the alleyway again…

And found that, this time, a vehicle was driving across the street. Specifically, an 18-wheeler truck.

Whose engine front was pretty much destroyed as Carmen slammed into it…and bounced off, the mutant ricocheting off the vehicle like a pinball and continuing on his out of control roll down the street.

"PLEASE I'LL NEVER BE BAD AGAIN JUST SOMEONE HELP MEEEEEEEEE…" Carmen wailed as he rolled off and disappeared into the distance.

"…I'll take it." Terra said, and placed the hat on her head in a gesture of victory.

Only to have a man dressed in a leather jacket and carrying a whip walk up to her and snatch it off.

"That's mine." He said in a low somewhat growling tone, and walked off as he put his hat on.

"Sorry, got caught up in the moment." Terra said, and began turning away.

Then she abruptly realized just what had happened and whirled around. But the man was gone.

"…Okkkkkkkkkkkay." Terra said. "Captain Hero, Acme setups, that guy, is this really happening or did I eat some bad fried chicken last night and as a result am having very strange dreams…"

"HEY! HEY YOU!" Came an angry voice, and Terra turned around again as an angry trucker, seemingly unharmed, finished climbing out of his wrecked cab and started heading for Terra, who sweatdropped. Oh uh.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON! WHAT JUST HIT ME?" The trucker yelled, clearly thinking Terra had something to do with it.

"Hey whoa wait, calm down!" Terra said, as she raised her hands. But the trucker kept advancing, so Terra started backing up. "Hold it, this wasn't my fault! Let me explain!"

"YOU BETTER…"

And then the trucker abruptly trailed off. Terra, still backing up, raised an eyebrow.

Then she backed into it.

An unmoving mass that was clearly a body. A body hard as rock.

And once again, came the fear, as Terra's eyes went as wide as saucers, and she turned and looked at the massive, stone-faced (literally and metaphorically) face of Onyx.

"Not dream." Onyx said quietly. "Nightmare maybe."

The blow would have floored a tank.

And Tara Markov's frail form was nowhere near as tough as a tank.


	4. Part 4

_**Part 4: Terra Corpus, At Mens Ignis**_

The force of the punch thrown by Onyx would have sent Cinderblock reeling. Against Terra's unpowered and flimsy form, it should have quite literally shattered her body into jelly.

And if Onyx had been working by himself, that was the punch he would have thrown.

But he wasn't, and he had his orders, even if he disagreed with them. But he owed Puff too many favors to argue with her, and even if he found her lapses into sadistic cat and mouse games distasteful, he listened.

So instead of a swift, driving blow to smash the life from his foe's body, he instead cocked back his arm and lashed it out in a backhand-esque swipe that was more like a slap then a proper punch.

The purpose was to give the girl enough time to dodge, but not enough time to avoid the blow entirely.

And that was what happened, as Terra tried to recoil, but couldn't quite make it…

And even catching the glance she did was devastating, as pain exploded through her right shoulder and side, as gravity briefly abandoned her and she flew through the air.

And she wished gravity had taken a longer holiday as she landed, and more pain blasted through every part of her body as she awkwardly tumbled across the street, the unforgiving stone slamming fierce impacts through her even as it scraped off upper layers of skin on her legs and midriff.

Stars and darkness exploded in Terra's vision, and the void loomed, eager to swallow her whole.

In the end though, it backed off, as the pain instead took another stampede through her body, too much even to cry out. Instead, Terra just emitted a wracking gasp/cough from where she lay.

"HEY!" The trucker yelled. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! LEAVE THAT GIRL ALONE!"

Onyx just looked at the trucker with a low gaze that spoke of business.

Give the man credit, he didn't turn and run. Instead he turned and rummaged in his truck, and yanked out an overlarge gun ( .357 Magnum, someone had penile issues) as he turned back to the rock man…

And screamed as a corrosive gas washed over his hands, turning his gun to slag and badly searing the hands that held it, and even as the man let go of the ruined weapon in his pain Puff dropped down, her face a mix of angry resentment at the attempted interference and savage joy at getting to deal with it.

"Back off, jackoff!" She snapped, and fired a blast of concussive gas from her hands, sending the trucker flying and bouncing across the ground much like Terra had a moment earlier. Unlike Terra, when he stopped moving, he didn't start again.

Though Terra couldn't believe the said movement she was engaging in, as she tried to push herself up. It seemed like every inch of her body was screaming in pain: how could she even blink, let alone get up?

Once, she'd loathed her powers. Now, with them missing and with her having been trained to will the ground to soften via various means to lesson impacts, Terra was beginning to see a definite upside to them, perhaps even more then before.

Still, as hard as it had proven to be, Terra could see a definite comfort in said hard ground in her pain-fogged mind. She wouldn't mind lying down on it for a bit. Maybe four days or so.

Unfortunately, reality broke through her stupor and made her realize she probably didn't have four seconds.

"That's right Onyx! Crush her into a blonde puddle!" Puff yelled. Onyx said nothing, though he rolled his eyes a bit: though Onyx could very easily crush Terra into said 'blonde puddle', Puff's tone meant that she really wanted Onyx to toy with the girl for some time before delivering anything resembling a death blow. Onyx sighed inwardly: Puff always thought she had the makings of a criminal mastermind, and that her bounty hunting and her current 'lowbrow' criminal career was just a step there. But the fact was that with her stalking this former metahuman who had purposely put herself in harm's way for some reason Onyx couldn't fathom when she could have very easily grabbed all the money taken from the bank and run, not to mention her vicious insistence on a drawn out death instead of a quick one spoke more of what she was at her core, and said core didn't demonstrate mastermind behavior, though Onyx would never tell Puff that. He tried to make the argument that Puff was angry over being challenged, then mucking around trying to find the girl, not to mention the bizarre events that had disabled Hotstreak and sent Carmen-Dillo into the distance to god knew where…but in reality he knew that Puff could care less about their makeshift team. She was just plain mean.

Normally he didn't have a problem with it. His heart WAS made of stone after all, and not just in a literal sense. And even when he did, he remained silent. Puff was the boss.

And so he started for the girl again, who was actually trying to get up. Either he'd pulled his punch too much or she was a lot tougher then he thought. Probably the former. She looked like a stiff breeze would blow her over.

Terra could see Onyx coming, and her muscles screamed to get up and run, but her nerves screamed back to get bent. Fortunately, Terra's innate survival instincts, the animal intuition honed by her time on the street, came to back up her anger, and she managed, somehow, to get to her feet.

Just as Onyx loomed over her.

Terra tried to run, but her jelly-like legs sent a memo that they weren't really up to a prolonged sprint, how about a lurching gait that was almost comical?

It served…in a sense.

Onyx raised his arms, his fists lacing together, and then they pistoned down.

They missed Terra by a foot, but the impact tremor of the blow threw Terra right off her feet, and as she sprawled painfully on the ground again Onyx lifted his arms up from the ground and headed for Terra again.

This time she didn't get up in time, as Onyx's foot lashed out and slammed into her body, and she once again found herself flying.

And landing with no safety net, never mind the original kick.

Terra didn't really know how breaking bones felt. But if the amount of pain that crashed through her body DIDN'T indicate what bones breaking felt like, she didn't really want to know.

Onyx snorted. That kick had been a LOT more of Onyx scooping and lifting Terra with his foot to send her flying then an actual contact strike, but hey, that was what Puff wanted, as he glanced behind him. Puff had actually flown down to the ground and reformed her legs, and she gave Onyx a thumbs up. So he had to keep doing this. Fine, fine. He was going to ask for some extra percentage in the money split later though.

Terra wondered, in a brief moment of lucidity, why she wasn't dead. She really should have been, and part of her wouldn't have minded that much if it stopped the pain. She was definitely damaged. Her right arm wasn't working that well, and her chest was fully reciting the warranty of what kind of blows it was designed to handle, and getting hit with a bullet train was not covered, please try and refrain from having any such collisions in the future…

And yet…she found herself trying to get up again.

Must be a head injury. Yeah, she'd definitely been knocked loopy.

But a deeper part of Terra said that if she didn't do something, ANYTHING, fast, she'd be knocked right off the mortal coil.

And so she looked at Onyx coming at her, a casual stroll, no rush, and she grit her teeth even as a fresh copper taste filled her mouth from a bloody lip.

…he was made of rock. It was her only chance, as she raised her left hand.

Come on. She didn't need to drop a mountain on him. She just needed a flash, a spark, a sputtering burst of heat, enough to take part of his rock form and inflict some kind of disability: twist an ankle, cramp a thigh, give him an ice cream headache, ANYTHING.

Come on. This was far more desperate then being kept out of jail. This was life and death. Surely there were fumes left in the tank. Surely she could do something. Surely she could reach down deep and find one last surge of strength to save herself after what she'd done to save others…

And she found…nothing.

The well was completely tapped, and no amount of desperate hope was going to produce results.

She'd wanted so badly to be a normal human.

Be careful what you wish for.

And so Terra stood there, despair blooming on her face, as Onyx once again loomed over her. He'd seen what she was doing and felt a slight touch of apprehension, but that hadn't slowed his walk, and he'd been proven right.

"Hey." He said. "At least you tried."

Terra didn't know if she was being genuinely complimented or insulted, but while she couldn't find her power she found she could find the rage again, as she screamed and lashed out with her left fist.

All she got from that blow to Onyx's stomach, as one might expect, was a fresh blast of jagged pain. It was a minor miracle she didn't break any fingers.

Maybe she should have gone for the eyes. That was one of the less noble techniques Robin had tried to teach her: eyes were vulnerable, and if you were in desperate straits…

But it was too late for that, as Onyx sighed and began coiling up a fist, then changed his mind in mid-coil and instead just tucked his primary finger under his thumb…and then after another brief thought uncoiled that finger and placed his weaker ring finger under it instead.

And as Terra looked up, he used said finger to flick her in the face.

He may as well have fired an artillery shell right between her eyes.

Her head stayed together, as amazing as it might seem (then again Onyx was pulling his punches. A lot), but that fact was lost on Terra as she left the ground again, doing a small slight arc before she crashed onto her back.

Her head lolled back on her neck, her eyes staring and blank.

A thin trickle of blood began to leak down her forehead, but Terra paid it no mind.

She seemingly had no mind left to pay.

* * *

Onyx groused: damn it, despite his efforts he'd hit her too hard and made her a vegetable. Puff might be unhappy.

Then again, hell, he'd indulged her bloodthirst enough, as he turned around.

"I think that's it." Onyx said.

"What? Ah maaaaaaan, it was just getting good." Puff complained.

"Maybe if she weighed more then my average meal, it might have lasted longer. Come Puff, we've wasted enough time here."

"What about her head?"

"You can remove it, I'm in no mood." Onyx said as he began walking away.

Puff pursed her lips, wondering if it was worth the mess of removing the girl's head…nah, she'd live with this. Maybe next time Static would realize she was serious business.

"Dumb ho." Puff commented, looking at the blonde girl's broken form. Whatever had she been thinking?

* * *

_What my friends taught me…I tried so hard to remember it…but was it all worthless without what made me their friend…why…why did you abandon me?_

**_Oh child…I never wanted to…_**

…_what…_

_**I was never angered with your connection…but…child, you made your choice to use it that final time…it was an unnatural use, an abhorrent use. It caused me agony…I do not hold anger or grudges, child of my will, but there are consequences to every choice…**_

I…just wanted…to save the world… 

_**You wished to save life child. The life of the world and the world itself, they do not always stand as one. All life has been struck from my being before, and I continued on.**_

_So you would use that as an excuse to abandon me? Like everyone else? Are you no better then THEM!_

_**I am beyond such things, my child…but remember…by that fact, in many ways are you…**_

_I'm nothing…_

_**Only if you want to be. And I know you don't. As I know what you are.**_

_A worthless teenage girl who's dying in the street?_

_**Remember what I said of our link, my child. And remember what I said of myself. There is the life sprung from earth and then there is the life of the earth. And just because one has ceased to be does not mean that all has ceased…**_

And with that, Terra found herself blinking.

The sky stared back at her, moments before her head exploded with a deep, throbbing ache to join in the rest of her body. Terra seized and then heaved, breaking into a series of wracking coughs, even as blood continued to run down her face.

Unfortunately, said cough drew the attention of the leaving pair of villains, as Puff whirled around.

"You idiot Onyx! She's still breathing! Go finish the job, you lazyass!" Puff snapped.

"Odd…did not think…"

"DO IT!"

Onyx probably would have cared for Puff's tone less if he weren't a touch mad himself. It didn't speak well of his strength if this slip of a girl could keep getting up from his attacks, pulling the punches or not. Well, enough of that.

Terra was barely aware of the pair, as she rolled onto her stomach and tried to get up, continuing to cough and gasp. What had just happened? She could remember a voice, on the faintest edge of her mind…but even that was fading:

_Even if one seems finished there is always the other…_

But before Terra could find out just what that meant, even those words faded, and she found she could remember neither the words nor the context.

And she didn't have the time: Onyx was coming.

Terra looked at him, and wondered why she'd come back. She barely felt like she could move any more, much less fight or run. And Onyx didn't look very happy.

Maybe this was the part when someone came riding to the rescue. Hell, at this point, she'd even welcome Slade Wilson.

But as Onyx's footsteps drew close, she realized no one was coming. She was alone. What to do?

She looked up at Onyx, and in a pain-fevered moment, almost made the peace sign.

"I'm done with this." Onyx said, as he rolled his fingers, the thick stony digits giving off a series of deep, resonate cracks.

Terra had no words for him. She'd always sucked at saying goodbye.

"So long bitch!" Puff said, and waved.

Which was when the headlights flared on behind her.

Unfortunately for Puff, said headlights were not followed by a shrieking noise of tires, as the mutant girl whirled around to see KITT charging at her. He'd even completely muffled the engine noise as he lanced at her, having turned on the headlights several feet from the girl to get her attention.

That was roughly when he dropped the engine silencer doohickey Cyborg had installed and let the powerful motor roar like an animal.

And Puff looked very much like the proverbial deer.

"…damn."

And she fared as well as one, as KITT slammed into her, sending her crashing over the hood, up and over the windshield, and bouncing off the back of the car before she fell off in a thrashing, bone-snapping tumble.

Onyx snapped around to see this happen.

"PUFF!" He called.

That was all he got to say, as the headlights that had illuminated Puff now lit on Onyx…and abruptly cut out as they slid aside, revealing mini-missiles.

"Crud." Onyx said.

The tiny explosives lanced out and detonated against the stone giant, and he got to experience what he'd put Terra through as he flew through the air and crashed into a car, crushing it beneath his weight, as KITT did an insanely tight turn and shrieked to a stop next to Terra.

A new pair of missiles slid out, as Onyx, his chest smoking, tried to sit up, and did so to see the sight of said arming.

"CRUD."

The projectiles flew once more, and Onyx vanished in the explosion. It was really quite cool.

Terra couldn't vouch for that though: she was lying face down on the ground, barely conscious, her body a mass of deep bruises and contusions, not to mention a myriad of cuts and scrapes. Somehow, she hadn't broken any bones: this was either an indication of insane luck or that Terra listened to the commercials for milk while she growing up way too hard.

The door opened, and a mass of slithering metal wires emerged from it and took hold of Terra, and as she mumbled the wires pulled her up and placed her in the front seat, even as the car shifted around her.

"Activating Revitalizer Array." KITT intoned, as several flat looking scanner thingamabobs came out on coiled metal ropes and scanned bright green glowing beams over and across Terra's body, back and forth, back and forth.

And amazingly, it seemed like the deep bruises faded some, that the cuts and scrapes stopped bleeding. They didn't vanish entirely, but Terra at least looked like she was alive now.

A fact that came quite clear to her as she sat up with a surprised gasp.

"Well what do you know, it worked. I didn't relish driving you to a hospital, the parking fees are ridiculous." KITT said.

"Kitt…" Terra mumbled, her head still groggy. But she was aware that while she still hurt, it was a lot less then she'd felt 20 or so seconds ago. "What the hell…was that…"

"An attempt by Father Cyborg to duplicate the healing effects of your teammate Raven via a series of…well you're still recovering from a concussion so I'll save it for later. He hasn't gotten anywhere near fully replicating the extent of her abilities, and he might never, but as you can see, the prototype has its uses. He installed it in me and forgot to take it out when something else distracted him, in case you were wondering. Lucky for you, huh?"

"…yeah…yeah…" Terra said, as she blinked away the last of the mental murk. "KITT! Thanks for saving my ass and all BUT WHERE WERE YOU?"

"Uh, well you see…"

* * *

KITT had actually flipped himself up quite soon after Hotstreak's lucky blast. Unfortunately, he'd gotten distracted.

"Hey baby, what's your make and model?" KITT said as he stood parked next to a pink Thunderbird. "Weren't you in that movie _Christine?_ Because I think I'm seeing stars in your…"

"WHAT DID I EVER DOOOOOOOOOO…!" Carmen-Dillo wailed as he rolled past KITT.

"…oh right, the mistress!" KITT realized, and slammed on the gas as he activated his tracking device.

* * *

"…it took me some time to recover. Sorry for the delay. I did my best."

"…I guess." Terra said, as she checked herself in the mirror. She still looked like Miss Roadkill USA, but at least she didn't feel like it any more.

"And I TOTALLY got her serial number!"

"What?"

"Nothing, never mind, where are the police, with the villains defeated it would be best if they returned before…"

And then with a groan of tortured metal, Onyx pushed himself free of the fiery wreckage and stepped from it, his clothes badly damaged and his skin covered with soot. But besides that, he didn't seem very badly harmed.

"WHAT? THAT BASTARD MADE ME WASTE MY ULTIMATE ATTACK!" KITT yelled.

"…but it saved my life!" Terra said, mildly offended.

"I had any number of penultimate attacks that would have done the same thing!"

"Oh, and why didn't you use THOSE then?" Terra snarked.

"I thought the ultimate attack would finish him off instantly."

"Well, it didn't, but third time's the charm! Fire missiles!"

"I don't have any more missiles."

"What? You only have four missiles? Why do you only have four missiles?"

"Lady Terra, I have an absurd amount of devices crammed into me. Miniaturization will only take you so far…"

Onyx bellowed and charged at the car.

"ACK! OKAY! FORGET THE MISSILES! SHOOT HIM! USE MACHINE GUNS!"

"I don't have machine guns."

"WHAT? WHY NOT?"

"I'm not a pure combat vehicle Lady Terra, plus you insisted Father Cyborg give me a minibar."

"Not a pure combat vehicle? Then why do you have MISSILES?"

"Because Father Cyborg believes everything is better with missiles."

* * *

MEANWHILE, AT TITANS TOWER.

"I better not hear you dissin' my rims again!" Said the Jive-Talkin' Moped to the badly scorched and soot covered living room, as some trace ash drifted into the new crater in the floor.

"…WHY THE HELL DOES THAT THING HAVE MISSILES?" Noel lamented.

* * *

"OKAY, FINE, I DON'T CARE, SHOOT HIM! WITH ANYTHING! NOW! NOW!" Terra yelped as Onyx closed in on the car.

"Affirmative!"

And a projectile launcher popped out of the right hand front door…and began shooting Onyx with soft foam balls.

Onyx, who'd stopped to block, preparing for a far more serious assault, was briefly stunned into immobilization by the ludicrous nature of what HAD been used.

His expression was mirrored on Terra's face.

"Was that a Nerfzooka?"

"Yes, in retrospect, a poor choice. Attempting Plan B!"

And a new cannon emerged from the left side of the front of the car…and sprayed Onyx with itching powder.

Onyx recoiled and snorted, but the irritant seemingly again had no effect on his hard stone skin, even with the missile and explosive damage it had endured.

"And the itching powder cannon…well let's just say we can scratch that off our list." KITT said as Onyx glared at the pair with vindictive eyes.

"STOP WASTING YOUR PROCESSING POWER ON PUNS! SHOOT IT WITH SOMETHING WITH IMPACT!"

"Roger. Activating the steam powered toad cannon!"

And before Terra's stunned eyes, the rear seats opened up and a 'retro style' cannon emerged, and indeed fired ribbiting projectiles right at Onyx.

They made him recoil a bit in surprise. He fared much much better then the toads.

"…steam…powered…toad….WHAT?" Terra ejaculated.

"Steam power is cool." KITT replied.

And Onyx had finally lost his, as he roared and charged again.

"ACK!" Terra yelled, as KITT apparently decided that at the moment discretion was the better part of valor and locked his rear wheels while he abruptly jerked his front ones to the side and burned rubber, causing his front end to slide out of the way of Onyx's crushing fist at the last second, as KITT released the lock on his backwheels and peeled away in reverse, away from Onyx, who rapidly gave chase.

"Oh great, now what do we do, drive backwards until we get away or hit a wall, whatever comes first?" Terra asked.

"Sounds good to me!"

"But…we…you…you….YOU'RE AN EMBARASSMENT TO HENRY FORD!" Terra blurted out, unable to think of anything else resembling an insult. The fact that she didn't want to run away when moments ago she'd nearly been dead spoke quite well to the widely and rapidly seesawing world of superheroics, which could go from comedy to tragedy in a snap and then snap back, if the earlier events of Carmen and Hotstreak's defeat abruptly changing to the type that defined Onyx's pursuit of Terra wasn't proof enough.

Strangely enough, it worked, as KITT slammed on the brakes, stopping on a dime. Good thing Terra was wearing her seatbelt.

"Wow, good thing I was wearing my seatbelt." Terra said.

"Eh, those things kill more people then they save." KITT said.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Well you clearly heard me."

"Oh yeah. BLASPHEMER!" KITT yelled.

"Yeah fine, now that we're not running away, FIND SOMETHING TO HIT HIM WITH!" Terra yelled, pointing at the still charging Onyx: they'd put some distance between him and them but it wouldn't last long.

"Arming the Popcorn Mortar!"

"NO!"

"Arming the Jellyfish Slingshot!"

"NO!"

"Arming the Beer Grenade!"

"DID CYBORG ONLY INSTALL ONE SERIOUS WEAPON IN YOU OR DO YOU _WANT_ TO BE SMASHED?" Terra yelled.

"I am what Father made me." KITT said.

_"Why do you make these things?"_

"_Hmmmmmmm?" Cyborg said, as he peered out of the hood of the high tech car that would eventually become KITT._

"_I mean…I've heard the stories. You'd think you'd be more interested in, I dunno, protesting against product testing on animals, or something." Terra said from where she sat._

_Cyborg gave Terra a very serious look, and the blonde realized she'd just stuck her foot in her mouth._

"_SORRYSORRYSORRY! I'll never talk about serious stuff again!" Terra protested._

"_It's all right, though you should think before you speak." Cyborg said, and sighed as he fetched a rag and began wiping his face. "My earliest memories are of working on my dad with cars. He might be gone, and I might be different, but that will never fade for me, no matter what parallels you might draw."_

_Then Cyborg grinned goofily._

"_Now, where do you want the Diesel Powered Chainsaw Gun?"_

"…_the WHAT?"_

"_The Diesel Powered Chainsaw Gun! You never know when you're going to run into Tree Aliens from Dendros IV!"_

"…_HAVE you?"_

"_Well no…but my motto has always been, be prepared."_

"_I thought that was the Boy Scout's motto."_

"_The little creeps stole it from me! Remind me to sue!"_

"_Really Vic, why would I need a Diesel Powered Chainsaw Gun?"_

"_Well…I suppose you don't…but…" Cyborg said as he looked wistful. "When I got a little older, I used to come up with parts I wanted to install in the cars my dad and I worked on. All kinds of silly stuff: sundae makers, silly string guns, and that was to start: they got a lot weirder. And he'd always just kind of smile and nod his head, and go 'Whatever you say Victor'. In a way, I missed that more then the cars. But now I'm old, smart, and experienced enough to actually BUILD these ridiculous gadgets…and well, I found new partners in it in Gar and Tim. So I always try to install at least two 'ridiculous' gadgets into my babies. I figure between them and another weapon to do harm, well, it serves as a grounding force. Plus, come on, what could be cooler then a Diesel Powered Chainsaw Gun?"_

"_Gee, I dunno, a Nuclear Pea Shooter?"_

"…_WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?"_

_Terra facevaulted._

"_Uh Cy, this car IS going to have something in the way of traditional defenses, right? Or is my sole line of protection going to be making my opponent think he's having a bad acid trip?"_

"_Of course Terra. There's a time for fun and then there's the rest." Cyborg said, as he pulled himself out of the car's guts again and walked away. "You know, in a way this acts as a microcosm on machines. They're always getting more complicated, and in a lot of ways, more and more frivolous. And sometimes the most effective things are the simple ones that came first."_

_And as Cyborg spoke, he reached up to the nearby wall and removed a very large piece of metal that Terra had initially mistaken as some kind of bizarre art piece. Now she saw what it was: a large and potent battering ram._

"_Sometimes you wanna go with the frivolous. And sometimes, you just gotta hit 'em hard and hit 'em fast. The best solutions are the simplest ones._"

"…indeed you are KITT." Terra said. "Hold the weapons, I have a better idea."

"Well I suppose statistically that had to happen eventual-" KITT began as Terra quickly located the switch she needed. Cyborg had been true to his word: it was prominent and labeled. The front of KITT shifted and the ram sprang out and locked.

"…that?" KITT said in a small voice.

"Get ready to kick the tires and light the fires Ding Dong Daddy." Terra said, as she yanked down on the stick.

"…This isn't a very good idea Michael. Let's have a lengthy debate about the pros and cons of..."

Terra stomped on the gas and KITT took off screaming down the street, as Onyx, having almost reached them, stopped dead.

"Oh dear, I forgot about your ADD." KITT lamented, as Onyx filled their windshield, as the rock meta saw what was coming and tried to set his legs.

He only succeeded partially, as KITT rammed into him and Onyx's feet began to tear up concrete as he was pushed backwards, even as he growled and tried to gain the advantage in leverage.

KITT was a very fast car, and even with the immense strength of Onyx pressing on their front the car continue to tear down the road, while Onyx tore up the road…but his presence in front of KITT couldn't be ignored forever, as Terra could see the Speedometer beginning to dip.

"Hey KITT, have the batteries recovered any from my Smoothies binge?"

"That depends. Would you mind turning off the AC?"

"Oh the things I sacrifice." Terra said as she flipped off said AC and then flipped open the top of the main drive stick, revealing a red button. "To infinity, and beyond!"

And she pressed the button.

And hyper-nitro engines activated as fire belched from KITT's exhaust pipe and buried the speedometer right off the circle, as Onyx yelled and KITT's tires screamed…

As Onyx found the road ending right in the side of Topeka's City Hall.

Which unfortunately was a very large stone style building.

"Oh dear. I hope he's insured." KITT said.

The wall was thick enough so that Onyx didn't go through it, but he nearly did, as the massive impact rang through the air, KITT's battering ram being partially crushed and Terra's face ramming forward, plunging into the instantly-opening air bag.

"….ow. My nod." Terra said, leaning back, a bit dazed. "Now you see Kitt, THIS is where you should have directed your safety measures commentary."

"I still say that belt kills more people then it saves."

"Based on WHAT?"

"Rumor and anecdote, mostly."

Terra would have facevaulted again if she hadn't been sitting down.

"Is it over? Are we done?" Terra asked, looking at Onyx's prone form lying on KITT's hood. "Is he still alive?"

Though he lacked the proper organic muscles to do it the traditional way, Terra could still see Onyx tense up.

"Oops."

"RARRRRRRRRRR!" The stone giant roared, as he reared up and tried to push himself free from the trapped situation he found himself in.

"ACK!" Terra yelled, and not knowing what else to do she slammed her foot down on the accelerator get, shoving Onyx backwards and pinning him against the partially wrecked wall. Unable to free himself as long as Terra did that, Onyx instead began furiously pounding on KITT's hood.

"HEY! HEY! I'M A CUSTOM JOB! CUT THAT OUT, BOTH OF YOU!" KITT yelled as his driver and his attacker furiously tried to find a solution to their problems.

"THEN DISABLE HIM!" Terra yelled.

"CRUSH YOU!" Onyx bellowed.

"All right, that's it! ROCK CUTTING LASER!"

And a laser cannon emerged from the seat behind Terra…and sputtered out a few sparks before dying.

"Which would have worked if you hadn't thrown back so many Smoothies you drained the batteries again after one turbo boost!"

"FORGET IT! USE SOMETHING ELSE!" Terra yelled.

"Oh the hell with it. LASER CUTTING ROCK!"

"What?"

And a small catapult popped up from the trunk of the car, and as Onyx's eyes were drawn to it, it launched a small boulder that smashed him clean between them. The giant shuddered and then fell limp against the hood again.

"…okay…that was so ironic I really can't believe it worked…did it work?" Terra said, staring at Onyx.

"…nope." Onyx said, and reared up and began pounding again.

"AHHHH! NEW WEAPON! NEW WEAPON!" Terra yelled.

"Oh for crying out loud, when this is finished I'm going to ask for a spot in the opening credits, I do all the work." KITT said. "Lady Terra, trust me."

"Trust yo-?"

And then Terra's accelerator abruptly stopped working, as KITT shuddered and then drove backwards, freeing Onyx much to Terra's surprise.

But before he or she could do anything, KITT acted, as his badly battered (even with his heavy armor) hood lid flew off and a massive cannon rose from within the engine block.

"In your face, Trapster!"

And then the cannon spewed out a thick, unpleasant smelling liquid that struck Onyx and forced him backwards, and even as he hit the wall ruins behind him Terra could see the material beginning to harden. It was some kind of powerful adhesive, and before Onyx could pull himself free he had been coated in another several layers of it which also began to firm.

Within seconds Onyx was sealed in a massive gooey cocoon, the glue staying wet just enough so he couldn't muster enough strength or leverage to pull or break free.

"…a glue gun?" Terra said.

"Or maybe I should say Paste Pot Pete. That name has a certain nostalgic value, after all…" KITT said to himself.

"What?" Terra said, confused.

"Never mind. Father Cyborg installed a copy of the Handbook of some place called the Marvel universe in my hard drive, and I like to use everything I have."

"That would explain the toad cannon."

"STEAM POWERED toad cannon."

Terra was about to reply again when Onyx reminded the pair his mouth wasn't glued shut by roaring loudly at them, as he continued trying to break free from the ultra-dense epoxy resin, thrashing and bellowing…

"And don't forget the mint." KITT said, as the review mirror opened up to reveal a small dart cannon that fired a pellet right into Onyx's roaring mouth and down his throat.

It wasn't a mint: it was an immensely potent tranquilizer, and it hit Onyx like a ton of bricks, as he shuddered and then went limp, finally down and out.

For a brief moment, silence.

Then Terra slapped the dashboard.

"You dumb car! Why did you use that stuff to BEGIN with?"

"Hey, don't you watch Sailor Moon? What kind of a show would it be if Usagi used the Moon Tiara Action in the first few seconds of the fight?"

"THIS ISN'T A MAGICAL GIRL ANIME!"

"Well you'd be surprised what…" KITT abruptly trailed off.

As Terra saw the movement. And it wasn't from Onyx.

"DANGER WILL ROBINSON!" KITT 'yelled', as he tried to throw himself in reverse and drive away.

Too late.

"GRARRRGGGGGHHHHH!" Puff screamed in a guttural noise of rage as she struck.

KITT had thought he'd balanced it properly in giving the Bang Baby an indication of his presence but not enough time to react when he'd run her over, but he'd been wrong: Puff's talent had subconsciously kicked in. But only having about half a second to act, it had kept the girl from going full smoke and being unharmed by the car ramming into her: all it had done was lessen the damage inflicted as she'd been thrown over the vehicle and crashed onto the street, where she'd laid in bewildered pain for some time (and nearly gotten run over by KITT AGAIN when he'd been driving in reverse to get away from Onyx) before her body finally reorganized itself for her to get up and act. It had stunned her for a bit, but KITT had failed to inflict a seriously disabling injury when he'd run her over, and the time he had bought had been spent trying to deal with Onyx.

And now it seemed like KITT and Terra's time was up, as Puff exhaled out a virulent purple cloud and tried to envelop the car and Terra in the corrosive mist.

Terra screamed.

And KITT activated his specialized ejector seat, which instead of hurling Terra straight up into the air where she would have probably broken her legs on landing and been a sitting duck, used far less force and a redirected throw to essentially throw Terra over the door and out of the car. She hit the ground on her left thigh, snapping out a cry at the pain, but even as she landed her training kicked in and she rolled to lessen the impact and put more distance between the car and Puff's deadly cloud, even as KITT squealed in his own agony.

The mist was mostly concentrated on KITT's left side, as massive acid scars bloomed on the armored bodywork and turned the two tires to molten slag that promptly stuck to the earth as firmly as KITT's glue cannon. The inside of the car caught the outer edge of the cloud and suffered various minor damage, though in Terra's case said minor damage would have still been serious burns, and worse if she'd inhaled some of the toxic attack.

Out of the frying pan again, as Terra managed to get to her feet, staring in horror as KITT's left side burned and melted, and then looked up at the floating Puff, who didn't need to be close to show the utter fury burning in her eyes.

The fire was coming, and it was now at its maximum intensity. Neither Hotstreak or Carmen-Dillo had taken Terra seriously enough, and even Onyx in his final moments hadn't really thought much effort was needed. Puff, on the other hand, was in the grip of a full on psychotic bloodrage that would rival a shark, and it was focused squarely on the de-powered Titan.

So she did the only thing she could do, once more: she ran for her life.

"YOU'RE DEAD BITCH!" Puff screamed, and gave chase. She didn't even bother looking at her trapped partner: her attention was solely on avenging her humiliation.

"Why…" KITT lamented as the Bang Baby flew over him in pursuit of his owner. "Why…was I programmed to feel pain?"

* * *

The streets were oddly abandoned.

Good, Terra's mind thought crazily as she sprinted in an overwhelming panic down the middle of the street she'd just turned onto. It meant she wouldn't get run over by a car. Or that Puff wouldn't hit any innocent bystanders. That was a lesson always being drilled into her: watch for innocent bystanders. Don't just act blindly, you'll hurt innocent bystanders. Handicap yourself, there are innocent bystanders. Personally Terra, while understanding the purpose, really wondered about the point: fighting in a city with superpowers more often then not would produce immense damage no matter how much the heroes tried to prevent it. Villains tended to lack scruples that way.

Especially when they were in the midst of screaming mad rages, as Terra heard the cry of fury behind her and risked a turn of her head.

As Puff blasted an ultra-high impact gas blast from her hands and sent several cars flying and tumbling through the air. Terra yelped and ducked slightly as the cars flew, and while none came any closer then five feet from her person, having vehicles crashing down around you was rather nerve jangling to say the least. Terra somehow found even more speed to add to her pace, but Puff was in rapid pursuit.

And zapping down and to the side. Terra's eyes widened.

Puff inhaled and then blasted out another deadly cloud of acidic smoke. The only thing that saved Terra was that Puff had to pause briefly to inhale and exhale, and in that time Terra had run forward several feet and out of the way of the caustic vitriol as it melted away a portion of sidewalk and the front of a building.

_Well, guess they'll be using the back door for a while._ Terra crazily thought. _Serves them right for cowering inside and leaving me to be a target out here all by my lonesome. How dare they act smart and sensible?_

And then the concrete next to Terra exploded as Puff blasted a fierce concussive gas blast right at the teen, and she yelled as she was pelted by sharp shards of debris, stumbling badly as the ground beneath her shook. But she regained her balance…

For roughly 1 ½ seconds, before Puff's second blast slammed into the ground right behind her and sent her half-stumbling half-flying forward, as she reached the end of the street and crashed into the side of a car with a painful thump.

But that let her keep her feet, as she lay there and gasped for a few precious seconds.

And then whirled away as Puff's deadly acid engulfed the car, melting the far less tough vehicle to molten slag as Terra ran for her life again.

"That's right, run bitch!" Puff yelled, and fired another concussive blast that went over Terra's head and slammed into the building across from her left, blasting a destructive path along the side of it. And Terra was sure Puff had missed on purpose. She was toying with her.

And Terra was at a loss on how to keep her from doing anything. She was grounded with no weapons and Puff was airborne with her own body functioning as a weapon. What the hell was she supposed to do, throw a grappling hook at her? God she wished she had her powers…

_She saw her target coming, and she struck._

_A whirling tornado of stones and dirt bloomed up from the ground and blasted at her attacker, who vanished from view. Terra felt a brief surge of elation…_

_Until her target re-appeared, having swiftly flown around the tornado, and as Terra yelped and tried to change the whirlwind's direction her attacker struck, raining down bolts of green energy that exploded on the ground on Terra, causing her to lose her balance and fall on her rear end. Which, due to the lack of padding, hurt more then she liked. Her dirt cyclone quickly vanished as the buzzer above the training course went off._

"_Reset. Try again." Cyborg's voice said over the intercom._

"_Are you all right?" Starfire asked as she landed, her concerned face mostly concealed around a goggles and breath mask combo that would protect her eyes and lungs from Terra's dirt-based offenses: it make her look like a reject from a Star Wars casting call but it worked._

"_Yes. NO!" Terra groused. "I had you!"_

"_Well…not really. You…arranged your dance moves in an obvious way?"_

_Terra stared._

"_Oh yes, you choreographed it too much. I think even the beginners of flight combat on my planet would have been able to avoid it."_

"_Great." Terra grumbled. "I can't even defend myself with a big dirt tornado."_

"_Ah Terra, do not be discouraged." Starfire said as she pulled off her mask. "You must remember, I have the higher ground. In my planet's war tactics and yours, that is inevitably the stronger position."_

"_So what, do I make a BIGGER dirt tornado?"_

"_Well no…Terra, I believe you are going about this the wrong way. You are, um, throwing out the bathwater before you put the baby in?" Starfire said, trying to properly use Earth metaphors._

"_Close enough."_

"_Your weakened position should be addressed first. With you on the wide-open ground and I in the air, I have many attack options. You need to lessen them. Conceal yourself. Distort your position. Make it so viewing you requires a certain angle. Anything that hides you in some way is in your benefit."_

"_Do I have to?" Terra again grumped, but this time in a friendly sarcastic fashion. "I like my idea of a bigger dirt tornado better."_

"_Make one as large as the island, it will not catch me!" Starfire retorted…then abruptly looked worried. "Um, Terra, it would probably be best if you did not make one as large as the island, I am certain that will produce MUCH unhappiness with the customary scofflaws."_

_Terra once again stared._

"_Um…usual suspects?"_

"_That's the one." Terra said as she got up. "And as for my dirt tornados Star, I say that size doesn't matter."_

"_Oh Terra that is untrue, you see…"_

"_DON'T FINISH THAT SENTENCE! DON'T FINISH THAT SENTENCE! TRAINING! DO! WE! NEED! UP!" Terra yelled._

_Though in the end Starfire was right: Terra couldn't catch her with a dirt tornado._

And now she lacked the power to make a dirt clod, much less a whirlwind of debris.

And without her powers, how could she possibly deal with her circumstances of being wide open and exposed? Run in zig-zags? Crawl under a car? Maybe she could find a conveniently open manhole she could jump into. And maybe if that happened, she could find some mutant turtles who knew ninjitsu to beat up Puff for her…

And then the next gas jet lanced at her.

But it didn't hit her. Indeed, it didn't seem to be aimed at her.

But rather the rather large pickup truck to her left.

Terra felt the pressure wave, even as a low WHUMP! noise thudded in her ears, and even as she turned her head to the left she saw the truck flying at her like a bat out of hell.

It seemed to go in slow motion, as she tried to dodge, turn, and recoil all at once, as her feet gave way and she started to fall, as the giant truck filled her vision even as her head went back…

She could have sworn she felt the tire brush her cheek.

And then the truck flew past her, having missed her by the proverbial inch, as it crashed into two other cars parked across the street and Terra fell painfully onto the ground once more.

"AH DAMMIT!" Terra heard Puff scream up in the sky, and her eyes snapped skywards as the floating gas mutant came to a stop, glowering at Terra…for a second, before she held up a hand and a new gas projectile began swirling into existence.

"Dodge THIS." She snarled, and began throwing back her arm.

As a bright spark of light caught the edge of Terra's vision, and suddenly reacting on instinct on what that meant, she threw herself as flat on the ground as she could as she simultaneously curled into the fetal position.

As a shredded wire or a sparking something met gasoline and the truck and cars suddenly went up in a gigantic one-two explosion. Puff's attack was canceled outright as the shockwave slammed into her and sent her tumbling backwards as she screamed curses, and Terra felt a heat on her back and legs so intense she swore it raised blisters.

But what she didn't feel was red hot shrapnel piercing through her spine or other places she didn't really need a hole, and after a few seconds she blinked her eyes open, rolled over, and managed to get up…and then recoiled as flaming debris crashed down around her. Luck had sided with her once again: she had a few seconds. To what? Start running down the street again until Puff's little game of Duck Hunt DIDN'T end with the dog laughing at her…?

And then she saw it: another alleyway.

And once she saw it, even before she realized it she was running for it.

It wasn't the best option, but at the very least it narrowed Puff's vision: she couldn't attack from ALL angles, she'd have to attack from just one…of course, that also meant Terra was hemmed in and couldn't really avoid the attack, like with Hotstreak before, but hell, she desperately needed a change of perspective, even if just for a few seconds. If she could get out of Puff's sight maybe she could duck under a car or into a building or…

…unless it was a…

Terra had already run partially into the alleyway when she saw that it was: a dead end.

And her heart sank below her knees once again: she'd screwed herself. By the time she stopped her forward momentum and turned around, Puff would surely have cut her off. And this was a solid brick wall that went up to the roof of the building, not a climbable fence.

After all her brushes, death had decided he was going to take her. They'd find her liquefied remains mixed in with melted garbage. There probably wouldn't be enough of her left to bury in a matchbox…

And then the door opened.

And Terra's beginning to falter steps seized and then redoubled their efforts as Terra tore down the alleyway for it, even as a clueless employee stepped out of the door with a bag of garbage, even as he began bringing a lit cigarette to his mouth.

Terra didn't bother saying anything: she just slipped around him and ran into the building.

"What the-HEY!" The young employee yelled as he whirled, dropping the bag and losing his cigarette, as he turned and began chasing Terra into the building. "You can't go in there! You-!"

"MOVE IT ASSWIPE!" Puff snarled as she flew down into the alleyway and slammed the young man into the nearest wall with a point-blank gas jet, knocking the poor bastard into blissful slumber.

As Terra ran out of the back room and found herself sprinting through a convenience store, as a rather confused older man stood up from where he was watching TV behind the counter, his face a mask of confusion.

"Who the hell…!" He said as Terra ran through the store.

"GET DOWN!" She managed to spare as she hit the door and, with a brief tinkle of bells, ran out onto the parking lot and hit the street again.

"Wha-?" Was all the man could get out.

As Puff blasted her way out through the back, literally, as twin jets of gas from her hands blew through the store and turned it into a giant whirling mass of rubbish within seconds, the counterman blown off his feet as massive amounts of cigarettes rained down on him, even as Puff flew through the mess and blew the doors and most of the front of the store off with another blast of concussive force, flying out through the spraying wreckage as she tore after Terra.

Who had managed to find another place to flee into at the end of the street: a bowling alley that went by the name of 'Barmey's Bowleroma", which was a reference Terra swore she could have caught if she wasn't so busy fleeing for her life as she slammed open the door.

She realized too late the downside of running through a bowling alley: there would be people in it.

And there was.

But at least it wasn't league night.

"GET DOWN!" Terra screamed to the shoe clerk as she ran past him.

"Hey wait, come back! You can't wear boots on the…!"

The double doors exploded into the building as Puff blazed in, and Shoe Clerk found himself in a mirrored predicament as Convenience Store Clerk as he was buried in stacked show boxes.

Strangely, Raymond Haarmaan paid little to no attention to the sudden explosion of noise: he was poised at his lane, ready to try and break his personal record, which in his dull life was an accomplishment he would have greatly appreciated.

But life picked the worst time to get interesting, as Terra ran past him.

"WHAT THE, HEY!" Haarman yelled as Terra ran up the alleyway. "WHAT THE HELL ARE-!"

And like all his fellows, Raymond was cut off as Puff blasted twin blasts of potent gas after Terra, only to have them slam into a stacked row of bowling balls and send them all flying, as players screamed and did their best to get out of the way.

As Terra reached the end of the lane and dove, smashing through the pins in a series of painful jolts…

As Puff fired off another blast, barely missing Terra as she rolled into the inner workings of the pin setter, jumped off, and fled into the back. The blast hit the end of the alleyway instead, and the shockwave promptly blew over every single remaining pin.

As Terra found a door in the back room she'd managed to flee into, throwing it open as she ran into the alleyway and out onto the street.

No Puff. Had by some divine chance…

Never speak of chance, as the wall of a nearby building behind Terra exploded outward, Terra yelping as she barely avoided the flying debris.

"I DON'T THINK SO BITCH!" Puff screamed as she flew out, and Terra groaned inwardly and redoubled her efforts: despite her two detours, her situation had quickly turned back into 'Run Forrest Run'. And she didn't even have the option of a football stadium to try and escape into.

Meanwhile, inside the bowling alley, the very stunned but mostly unharmed patrons were picking themselves up from the mess Puff had made.

"…okay…that doesn't count, right?" Haamaan said. His friends just gave him a look. "Just saying!"

"Hey, if knocking all the pins down is a strike, and three strikes in a row is a turkey…what's knocking down every pin in the whole building?" One patron who'd probably had a beer too many inquired.

The answer he got was to be barraged with more drinks: in this case, cups of soda.

But as you might remember, this story is not called '**_A Bunch Of Guys Go Bowling_**'.

"YOU'RE DEAD BITCH!" Puff screamed. Okay, so she was repeating herself. Angry criminally insane metahumans were not the most creative of people. "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

Terra didn't really care. What she did care about was the fact that she heard Puff inhaling, and she knew what THAT meant.

And this time Puff wasn't fooling around, as she sprayed out her mordant gas, as it slammed into the street and began melting it away as the gas jet tore down the road behind Terra, who threw a terrified glance behind her and somehow found more energy to run as the fatal mist burned up behind her.

And Puff wasn't letting off, for as even the blast slackened Puff inhaled again, as deeply as she could, and once again sent her acidic attack down onto the street as it pursued Terra, rapidly eating up the distance between them.

Terra could swear she felt her shoes melting, could swear she felt a hot touch upon her bare skin, could swear she saw purple on the edges of her tunnel vision…

Which is probably why she didn't see the fire hydrant.

Though it was pure luck that she didn't slam into it in such a way that she shattered her kneecap. Instead her foot and ankle caught it, Terra almost running around it before she tripped and sprawled onto the ground, doing a rather crude roll as the rest of her momentum abruptly bled off.

As Puff's mist engulfed the fire hydrant and was suddenly dissipated as it exploded upward. Terra gasped in surprise as water rained down on her.

But not as loud as Puff as she shrieked and slammed on the brakes so hard you could swear you heard her body screech.

Terra stared at the floating form, distorted through the tower of water the broken fire hydrant was putting up, and thinking that damn, that was the second hydrant she'd wrecked, she was going to owe the fire department a fortune at this rate.

"NICE TRY!" Puff screamed down at Terra as she got up. Terra blinked. What?

"YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES PEOPLE HAVE TRIED THIS TRICK? YOU THINK I'M STUPID? YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" Puff screamed, and then she flew back and fired a concussive gas blast at a nearby car, which flew through the air and crashed down on the fire hydrant, providing a crude but working plug.

Unfortunately, that cost Puff several seconds as Terra had begun running again, trying to make sense of it. _Nice try…she just stops…she doesn't like water. Or maybe just liquid…_

Great, so all she had to do was find a Super Soaker. Or do a rain dance. Or run until she ended up in New Orleans. Even WITH this knowledge…

And then she saw it. Not a fire hose, or even a knockoff water pistol.

It was a subway station, with a stairway going directly underground.

Which definitely sounded better then running down any more streets, as Terra broke for the stairs.

"COME BACK HERE!" Reached her ears, as she was halfway down the steps. Damn, and she'd hoped she'd get in unseen.

Well, at least she was getting in without paying: the station was deserted. Terra had no idea if that was due to the same possible evacuation that had left the streets empty (there were those guys in the store and bowling alley, but they could have just been told to stay inside, while public facilities like this may have been cleared) or something else, but she wasn't complaining, as she leapt the turnstile and ran down the second flight of stairs.

She heard the blast behind her as Puff gave chase, firing down into the subway as she herself went down the first set of stairs in a supposed try to hit a possibly just out of sight Terra. All it did was tip Terra off that Puff was still behind her but not right on her ass, and she needed that, and something else, as Terra crossed her fingers…and was rewarded. It was a united two-train platform, rather then a split pair with a standing position between them. That meant that there was room for two trains instead of one, and that was potentially going to be very important.

As Terra leapt down onto the tracks, stumbling a bit and gasping as she headed, if but for a moment, towards the electrified and hence dangerous third rail, and then she had her feet again and was running.

She had no idea if Puff could see her or not, but she couldn't turn back down, as she ran past the exit of the station and into the inky murk beyond.

The far inkier murk then she had been expecting. Subway tunnels weren't exactly lit up like airport runways, but they still had a fair bit of light from various sources for maintenance crews and the occasional emergency. But this subway tunnel, while lit enough so that Terra could still (basically) see where she was going (which would be important considering the aforementioned third rail), was far darker and shadow-filled then expected or preferred.

Well, on the plus side, it might help hide her from Puff, as Terra fled down the darkened tunnel.

She hoped it wouldn't split. Terra had wanted the larger two-train 'side by side' tunnel because if god forbid a subway train started heading down the tunnel, she could just get on the other side to avoid it. If she'd been forced to flee down a singular tunnel, then she'd have virtually no place to hide if a train came along, save for pressing herself up against the wall and praying her stick-like frame would actually serve her for once. Then again, if the tunnel split, it might give her a chase to lose Puff. Of course, a maintenance door would be just as nice: it might lead to a flight of stairs out of the place. If she could even see it in the murky gloom she was still fleeing through, as her footsteps and rapid breath echoed through the darkness.

Indeed, they were the only sounds Terra heard, as she continued running…but no sooner did she become aware of the lack of noise then she suddenly became aware of a few other things. Like the fact that her legs were on fire and her lungs felt like they were being clawed by a wild animal.

Despite herself, Terra's pace slowed and then stopped, as she fell to her knees and took in great gulping lengths of air. Very stale, murky, and unpleasant air, but Terra didn't much care as long as it went into her lungs. Her legs abruptly cramped, and Terra groaned and tried to remember how to massage them to try and relieve said cramps.

Well, at least she'd finally konked out in a (somewhat) safer place. Hell, she'd gone a lot longer then she would have ever expected, fear for her life aside. She might have been unable to put on any muscle weight, but it appeared her cardiovascular training had worked.

Still, she didn't want to stay still, so she, her teeth gritted as her breathing finally started to slow, pulled herself up and began to stagger forward, kneading the muscles in her thighs and calves. If she survived, she wasn't going to be able to move for days, she suspected. Still, she had to survive first, and that meant escaping Puff, who Terra was pretty sure still in pursuit, quiet aside.

Yes, she did not like how dark this subway was. She'd been in a few in her wandering days, and even slept in a closed down tunnel once (and wasn't THAT a fun experience). Had she heard that Topeka had only very recently built their subway, or was she imagining that? Maybe if that was the case and the subway was brand new it had fallen behind schedule and been opened before all the final touches had been added, like more lights. Now it was lit enough to see but not enough to banish a deep unease. Puff could be hiding in those shadows. And even if she wasn't, who knew what was? She had heard homeless people lived underground in various cities, why not here? Then again this wasn't New York, which was honeycombed underneath by so many criss-crossing opened, closed, and sealed off tunnels that it would have given Crete's labyrinth a run for it's money. If this was new, the homeless probably hadn't moved in. Properly. No, she'd probably just run into the Morlocks or the Mole People. The way her luck was running…

Something loomed out of the darkness before her, and Terra jerked and took a step back…then relaxed. It was just a subway train.

One that was clearly empty. What was it doing here, left in the tunnel? Had the evacuation of Topeka extended to stopping the subway trains and herding out the passengers?

Then Terra, as she got closer, managed to spot the problem: one of the front wheels was removed. Must have been a minor accident that had required a replacement. Probably late that night or something. But was that proper procedure to just leave the train here in the tunnel? Oh who cared? Whatever the case, she had to go around it.

The thought, as Terra went around the train and began walking beside it, occurred to her to go into the train and see if she could find any weapons. Wait, bad idea. While she was futzing around Puff might come along and Terra would find herself trapped, unless by sheer good luck Puff dismissed the train and just flew on. But Terra doubted that would happen. Hell, she should really start running again, now that she was rested some. Then again maybe she should have kept walking. The tunnel was still as quiet as a tomb (charming thought there): if Puff was still coming Terra was sure she'd hear her. Maybe she'd gotten lost. Maybe she had piss-poor night vision. Maybe some C.H.U.D.S' had eaten her. She…

Heard something, as Terra stopped. A low…

Rumbling. Coming from the tracks. Terra looked down and froze, as she realized what that meant.

She whirled around, wondering if she should run back the way she came, but wait, she had no idea which way the train was coming, she might be running right towards it. Could she hide under the stopped train abandoned in the tunnel? No, too damn dark, she wouldn't be able to tell if she was properly underneath it, as she turned around again, which way was the train, with the greater dark she should have been able to see it easier, which way was it coming, she needed to know…

And Terra turned around again and saw it, the faint light in the distance, coming the way Terra had just come.

She'd crossed about 1/3 of the length of the abandoned train, and she had a sinking feeling that she didn't have enough time to run back that way.

Only one choice left.

"…meep." Terra said, and turned and sprinted down the tunnel.

The darkness was starting to lighten around her, but that wasn't a good thing: it meant the train was approaching, and fast. A crazy thought entered Terra's head: Puff had been AWOL not because of being lost but because she'd taken the time to steal a train to run Terra down with. Indeed, Terra was suddenly certain if she turned around she'd see the crazy cruel grin of the black girl in the driver's seat as it bore down on her.

In the end, she didn't turn around, as she quickly realized that it didn't really matter if it Puff, a subway conductor, or Woody Harrelson driving the train, she still had 100,000 pounds (at least) of metal charging at her back and she knew that while trains had brakes they couldn't stop on a dime, and while getting hit at 20 MPH would be better then getting hit at 90 MPH the subtleties were pretty much lost on a 100 ton metal train.

The 100 ton-at-least train that was eating up the distance between them at a pace beyond Terra's fears. And so Terra once again ran for her life, the tunnel and subway next to her blurring in her vision.

As she suddenly heard the terrible shrieking noise behind her as the subway suddenly had its brakes applied, which ruled out Puff driving it, but it was still coming at her, she could feel the weight pressing down on her, the terrible pressure that would obliterate her as thoroughly as Puff's acid breath, and the worst part was she couldn't even blame it on malice, the train was just in the wrong place at the wrong time…

The screeching of metal filled her ears as Terra saw her shadow shorten at her feet…

And then the train beside her was gone, and Terra hurled herself to the side and landed painfully as the subway blasted past her. She rolled once and came to a stop, gasping, as the train continued to drive past her, even as he kept slowing down.

Once again, she'd shown death her cards and he'd had a bum hand.

Terra shifted, rolling over some as she tried to get up…

And froze as her arm almost came down on the electrified third rail. Her limb locked up literally a centimeter from it, as Terra's eyes went wide as saucers.

She swallowed hard, and then carefully lifted her arm back up and away from the deadly rail. She had to watch for that card up death's sleeve. He clearly had several.

Pushing herself up, trying to ignore the new pains from her rough landing, Terra turned and saw that the train had finally come to a complete stop down the tunnel. Glancing behind her, she walked/staggered up to it, even as the door at the back opened up and a flashlight shone out at her.

"JESUS LADY! Are you okay?" Asked whoever was holding said flashlight, which was currently shining in Terra's eyes as she recoiled.

"Fine. Great. Everyone should do it." Terra said, as she reached the train and grabbed the rail, partially pulling herself up as the train conductor helped her the rest of the way. Now that it was clear that she was relatively okay, the train conductor went from relieved to angry.

"…WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?" He yelled as Terra, pretty much tuning him out, walked up the subway car, ignoring the curious and angry looks from the several passengers, some of whom had probably taken nasty tumbles when the conductor had abruptly slammed on the brakes. "ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?"

"Actually no. Long story." Terra said.

"Hey, where are you going! You could have derailed us! Or caused an electrical fire! You're under arrest!"

"Can you arrest me? No? Then get someone who can, I'm not going anywhere." Terra said as she reached the exit door to the car, opened it, and then opened the entrance door to the next car and started making her way up that one. She figured she'd do that until she hit the front car, to try and ween her brain off its need to keep moving.

The train conductor looked ticked, but he couldn't think of much else to do about the girl except turn her in at the next stop, as he made his way up to the end of the back subway car and opened the small control booth door. A subway usually had several places from which it could be driven: a traditional front end and a various number of smaller control rooms scattered through the subway train cars.

"Head control, head control, this is Vigil driving the 12 East line, you're not going to believe this, but we just had a…"

The back of the subway car abruptly exploded and passengers screamed and ducked for cover as the door went crashing through the car, and Terra, almost to the end of the second car, whirled around as her heart abruptly seized and filled with ice. Oh no.

"YOU THINK WE'RE DONE, YOU BITCH?" Puff screamed as she flew through the smashed end of the subway. "WE HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED!"

"Aw JEEZ." Terra groaned, and turned and ran for it again, quite possibly setting a speed record as she opened the twin doors between cars before her and fled into the next car.

"HEY! WHAT IN THE WOR-!" Subway conductor Vigil yelled as he turned…

Puff punched him aside, and Vigil groaned and fell back into the control room.

And, surprise surprise, his arm caught on the throttle as he fell, yanking it all the way down.

The subway lurched back into motion, even as Terra fled through her current car and Puff smashed her way into the second. Terra had opened the third set of doors and was halfway through the forth car when Puff came to the doors leading to the third car and tried to once again blow it open. However, she apparently hit it at the wrong angle, as the door was only torn partially off its hinges instead of all the way off. Terra could hear Puff shriek with frustration at this, but she wasn't complaining, as she opened and fled through her latest set of doors.

But she knew very well she was going to run out of cars, and quite soon. How many cars did the average subway have? 8? 10? She was just entering the sixth, even as Puff smashed through her brief obstruction and continued her furious chase.

"Now arriving at Garrison Station." Said an automated voice as Terra fled into the seventh car. Arriving? Maybe she could get out…damn it, the subway was going WAY too fast, there was no way it would slow down enough to stop at the station (a problem Terra was strongly suspicious that Puff had somehow caused, which she had), and she was already exiting the seventh car, how the hell was she going to get off…

Then, as she began running up the eighth car, she saw it on the wall: a large fire extinguisher.

And she suddenly had a crazy idea.

And considering the noise behind her, she didn't really have any other options.

And as Puff smashed her way through her fifth door, Terra grabbed the extinguisher off the wall, dragged it along a few feet, and, as the two lone passengers in the eighth train stared at her in shock and confusion, she hefted up the fire extinguisher and with a snarling groan rammed the base against the subway window.

The passengers cried out, but Terra ignored them, focusing entirely on the window, which seemed undamaged, so Terra, somehow finding the strength to keep the immensely heavy fire extinguisher up, reared back and slammed the base against the window again.

No dice, or so it seemed, but Terra wasn't giving up just yet as she took a few steps back and then charged, lancing the base of the fire extinguisher out once more.

A spiderweb of cracks splayed across the window, and with that result giving her one last burst of strength, Terra ran back and then forward, smashing the base one final time into the window as it exploded into a shower of blunt, gummy fragments, spraying in and out of the subway.

Terra dropped the extinguisher and pushed what remained of the window out of the way.

As Puff tore through the door into the car next to Terra.

And Garrison Station suddenly appeared in the windows, as the subway train drove past various shocked onlookers.

"I'm crazy." Terra said as she ran backwards several feet. "I'm crazy I'm crazy…!"

And then she ran for the window.

"GODDAMN CRAZY!" She screamed, as she jumped off the closest chair and hurled herself through the window and out into the station platform.

Fortunately, for once, she landed on something soft. In this case, it happened to be a large male commuter, who was driven to the ground as Terra flew into him.

It was too bad Terra missed the comical look of shock on Puff's face as the subway flew past Terra and off into the subway tunnel. It was worthy of an internet meme.

"…sorry, but thanks man! You saved me from a lot of pain!" Terra said from where she lay sprawled on top of the commuter, and planted a big kiss on his face before she scrambled up and ran for the exit, leaving an immensely confused and winded man lying on the ground.

"You, call the cops!" Terra yelled at a random passerby with a cell phone, and then started up the stairs to the street.

As Puff flew out of the tunnel, her face once again alight in snarling fury. In truth, she HAD gotten a touch lost when chasing Terra into the subway tunnel, and unlike Terra, she had been less aware of her surroundings. Which had ended up causing the train Terra had fled from and then through to come up behind her and splatter her gaseous flying state all over the place, which HURT. Hurt and re-ignited her anger all over again, once she'd put herself together again and resumed the chase. And then the girl had gone and pulled that Jackass-esque stunt to get away. For a powerless slip of a blonde, she was becoming a bigger headache then Static, and that just spiked Puff's anger higher. She wasn't going to lose the bitch, if she had to chase her all the way to hell itself.

And Terra could hear that anger in her screaming, as she reached the top of the stairs that exited the subway.

Out onto a street in which there were actually people and cars. Well, scratch running down the street again.

What she needed was water. Puff clearly did not like water. But where was she going to get water? Maybe she should have tried to use the fire extinguisher on Puff instead of using it to break the window, but too late for that…

She needed water and better ground, as she ran across the street (provoking a few angry honks from motorists) and started up the sidewalk there. But where could…

Then she saw the sign, and she at least had some kind of answer, as she jerked to the right and headed for the side door of a large, older style building.

And that was where Puff saw her heading as she got out of the subway herself, and her eyes sparked.

"No way bitch." She snarled, and flew after her.

* * *

The sign had actually advertised that the building Terra was running into was hosting some kind of scientific symposium/luncheon: Terra had picked it because she figured that due to that it wouldn't be locked and she'd be able to get in. Of course, what she'd do when she got in, she had no idea. She needed water…and with Puff right on her tail, she needed it FAST!

* * *

"Gentlemen, I give you an item that will revolutionize warfare!" The scientist at the podium said to the room of fellow scientists and a few reporters, as his assistant unveiled some kind of firearm. "This water gun…"

The quiet room abruptly filled with noise as a door on the left side of the room slammed open and Terra ran through.

"Never mind! Nothing to see here!" Terra called as she ran past the podium and headed for another door on the opposite side of the room.

"…AS I WAS SAYING." The scientist at the podium (he hated being interrupted), as Terra tried to open the door…and abruptly found it securely locked. "This water gun shoots water with such pressure as to instantly incapacitate any normal human being!"

"What if somebody had a vulnerability to water?" A reporter asked, as Terra furiously shook the door and punched it.

"Well then, it might kill them outright." The scientist said. "Unfortunately I cannot really test it…"

And that was all he got out as Terra ran back, jumped onto the podium, grabbed the gun…and abruptly ran back to the door and slammed it against it as hard as she could, finally breaking it open.

"NOOOOOOO! NOT MY WATER GUN! IT WAS PROFFESOR HERMAN WHO BUILT THE DOOR BREAKING GUN, NOT ME!" The scientist wailed.

"Well I had…wait…WATER GUN?" Terra said, as she looked at the now thoroughly wrecked and useless weapon. "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"

"Security!" The scientist at the podium said as Terra threw down the broken weapon that could have been her salvation if she'd been paying any attention while trying to get through the door and then ran through said door. "SECURITY! SOMEONE-!"

"COME BACK HERE!" Puff screamed as she burst into the room.

Terra barely saw her as she closed the broken door shut as best she could and whirled around. She found herself in a large open room that had been converted into a dining area, probably where the luncheon was going to happen. It was empty save for one janitor who was staring at her, if one didn't count the many tables and chairs and the long buffet style food stretch.

Terra heard the chaos erupt in the room behind her, and briefly felt terrible. But she couldn't control what Puff did, and she ultimately had to look after herself first, as she looked around for an exit door.

She found it…past the food-covered table…one section of which was filled with jugs of water.

Terra's eyes focused on it. Well, it wasn't as good as the water gun, but wet was wet.

"What the hell are you fancy invention-people DOING?" The janitor asked, referring to Terra's sudden entrance and the noise that had followed in her wake. Terra didn't bother answering as she ran for the table. "And I thought you sticking 25 plugs into one socket was bad enough, don't you know how hazardous that is…?" The janitor said, pointing to some electrical hazard that apparently bothered him.

"Sir, you'd better run." Terra said, as she grabbed up the biggest jug of water she could and ran back to stand beside the door.

"Run? What have…!"

The broken door exploded open again as the podium went flying through it, and a few scientists fled through it to the exit on the other side of the room. The janitor quickly decided he didn't care what was going on and should probably not hang around to find out, as he fled with the scientists, even as Terra hefted the jug.

A pause.

The form flew through.

And Terra threw her water.

And soaked the professor as he was hurled through the door, as her eyes went wide at her mistake.

She'd been faked out.

"Crap."

The blast of concussive gas slammed into her side and sent Terra flying as she crashed into a table and flipped and rolled over it, knocking over the table in turn as she slammed into the ground, the wind knocked from her.

"You're not listening, are you?" Puff said as she strolled in. "You think I'm stupid. They always do. The only stupid one here is YOU, bitch. Don't you know who I am?"

Podium Scientist was groggily getting up. Puff growled at him and he made an odd squeaking scream and ran, heading for the exit door a few of his colleagues and the janitor had already used. Puff ignored him, as she headed for where Terra lay.

"Well believe me bitch, the last thing you're going to be screaming is my name…"

Terra kicked out with all her strength, and the table slid over the ground and rammed into Puff's legs and torso, eliciting a gasp from her as it hit her before she could turn gaseous. Terra scrambled to her feet and ran for the same exit door Podium scientist had just fled through.

"Oh no, no more Road Runner shit." Puff said, and fired another concussive blast.

It took Terra square in the spine, as she jerked and collapsed, her whole body briefly going numb. Her old friend pain came in the wake of that, but Terra almost didn't feel it as she tried to get up again and escape…

As Puff floated down in front of the exit doors, and with a wicked grin she slammed them shut and exhaled her potent acid onto them. The metal aspects melted and fused together, cutting Terra off from fleeing.

That way, as she whirled her head, looking at the other door she'd come through and tried to ambush Puff by, as she sprang up and sprinted for that one in turn.

"I SAID DROP IT!" Puff yelled, as she charged up another concussive gas blast. She didn't fire it at Terra this time though: instead she aimed at and blasted a chair, which slid across the floor at high speed and slammed into Terra's legs, sending her falling/flying backwards in a snapping flip that nearly caused Terra to break her neck. But her left shoulder took most of the impact instead, leaving her lying on the floor again with fresh waves of pain.

Puff quickly flew across the room again, slammed the mostly broken doors as shut as she could, and also gave them an acid bath. It wasn't as firm a seal as her first attempt, but it would do…

As Terra lunged at Puff, throwing another jug of water at her.

Puff jerked to the side, as the water sprayed on her just sealed exit. Too close. Time to crack down.

"Nice." Puff said, and backhanded Terra as hard as she could, sending her staggering back. No sooner as she recovered her feet then Puff was right in her face.

"Boo!"

Terra tried to swipe Puff with the now empty glass jug, but Puff swatted her arm in mid-blow and caused her to lose her grip, moments before Puff buried a fist in Terra's gut. As the blonde doubled over with a wheeze, Puff grabbed her by the hair and slammed her knee up, sending Terra snapping back up and backwards as blood sprayed from her nose.

The small of her back rammed into another table, cutting off her escape, and before Terra could do anything Puff was right in her face again, slamming a nasty right hook across Terra's cheek. Starts exploded in her eyes, and strange colors joined them again as Puff added a left hook in turn. Terra's head snapped with the blow, as she nearly fell down from the impact. And the only reason she didn't was because Puff grabbed her.

"What's my name, bitch?"

Puff uppercutted Terra up onto the table, and then seized it and flipped it over, as Terra crashed down onto the ground and then had the table flipped over onto her, forcing the air from her lungs once more in a rasping wheeze.

Puff cracked her knuckles: she remembered her boxing lessons better then she'd thought. They'd serve her well, as well as some improvising.

The table shifted: Terra was trying to get free.

Puff stomped on the table, and another pained gasp sounded from beneath it.

"Yeah. What's my name!" Puff yelled, and stomped on the table again. She couldn't tell if the cracking noise was the table or Terra's bones, but it was all good.

"That's right." Puff said, as she walked around the table. "You better DAMN! WELL! REMEMBER!" Puff snarled, punctuating each word with a stomp.

The table shuddered, and Puff decided to take it up a notch, as she turned gaseous and floated up. This would probably crush her ribs to a splintered mass, but eh, what could one expect from such a thin stick of a girl?

Puff floated up some more, trying to judge the precise distance needed without harming her own legs.

And underneath the table, Terra agonized, trying to get free, trying to think of some way, any way, to escape this with her life…

_The metallic snapping sound was loud and unpleasant, and it made Terra wince as she heard the small, mournful howl. She turned off the training course and headed down into it, where a green fox had its left foot securely caught in a trap it had been unable to avoid._

"_Ow. You all right Gar?" Terra said with concern._

"_Yeah, ow. It's okay. This isn't like normal hunting traps, no sharp ends. Still smarts, ow! Like getting your hand slammed in a car door." Beast Boy said, as he adjusted his bodily position to try and look at the trap better._

"_You want me to…?"_

"_No, I should see if I can get out of it myself first." Beast Boy said, as he tried to get leverage with his other paw. "I find it helps if I approach animal problems with a human perspective, it gives me a better idea what to become when I'm put on the spot, and such."_

"_What would a real fox do?"_

"_More likely then not? Chew his own foot off." Beast Boy said, as he struggled with the trap, noting Terra's look of disgust. "Yeah."_

"_You know, for the expression 'Clever like a fox', that doesn't seem very clever."_

"_Cleverness is relative. Don't confuse what makes sense to you to what makes sense to animals." Beast Boy said as he tried another angle. "To an animal the foot is trapped, and if they can't move, they will die. So they sacrifice a foot."_

"_I'll take human thinking."_

"_Ah, but that doesn't always bring perfect results now, does it?" Beast Boy said, and grinned. "There's a fable…of a fox and a cat…the fox bragged to the cat that he had a hundred ways of escaping man's hunting hounds, and the cat said he just had one, he ran up a tree. Well, the hounds came, and the cat ran up a tree, but the fox was so busy trying to decide which one of his hundred ways he wanted to use to escape that the hounds caught him and tore him to pieces. I think you see the metaphor."_

"_Right, when evil threatens, run up a tree."_

"_No no Terra. I'm just saying that human thinking, yeah, it's powerful and all that, but it's also complicated. Easier to screw up. Animal thinking, instinct, it might be simple and it might not work out for the best, but when your human brain is panicking, or scrambled, or overwhelmed, sometimes the best thing to do is seize onto your gut reaction and go with that. Sometimes that calls for chewing off a paw…"_

_And with a clank, the trap snapped open as Beast Boy finally found the sweet spot. He turned back to human form and rubbed his wrist._

"_And sometimes not. They have their merits, both of them. Learn to control both, and even the darkest situations will have solutions."_

"…_wow. And here I thought your knowledge was limited to vandalizing Wikipedia." Terra joked. Beast Boy gave her a playful push and smiled. Terra smiled back._

"_Just keep it in mind. Understanding your enemy, your friends, your options, that's all important. But sometimes it gets in the way of what we may or may not know about our selves. And sometimes the only way to go when your foot is trapped is, well, whatever you can sink your teeth into."_

And so, Terra found a tree to run up.

As Puff turned fully solid again and plunged down towards the table.

And Terra did the only thing she could think of and shoved the table up as hard as she could.

If she'd had super strength, the table would have pasted Puff in the air. But Terra had less then average strength, and so you'd think pushing the table up like she was bench-pressing it would do nothing.

You were wrong: it did something. It caused a slight adjustment to where the folding leg was.

So instead of stomping the table, Puff ended up stomping her foot down on the upside down two-pronged setup.

The impact drove the table down and smashed Terra's elbows into the ground, but the immensely awkward landing turned Puff's attempted stomp into a bouncing twist-ricochet as she shrieked and fell, the pain in her ankle keeping her from concentrating as she splattered onto the ground chest first.

Terra groaned, and then pushed again, shoving the table off of her and crawling her way back onto her feet as Puff herself tried to recover from the impact.

Terra spied the water jug setup on the food table again, and staggered over to it, seizing a jug in each aching arm and then turning around as Puff hobbled to her feet.

"Ow, damn, you goddamn…!" Puff cursed as she got up, hopping on one foot.

Terra threw the water at her.

And Puff blasted herself backwards with gas jets from her hands, throwing herself out of the way of the spraying liquid. Terra's eyes widened…as Puff blasted another two-handed blast into Terra, sending her flying backwards as the jug flew out of her hand and sprayed water across the room.

But unfortunately, nowhere near Puff, as Terra found herself on the ground again, as she and Puff struggled to get up.

They got up at roughly the same time, but the vicious look that once again adorned Puff's face indicated the situation clearly: Puff could strike at a distance, and Terra could not.

"You want a drink so bad?" Puff snapped.

And then she thrust her hands out, the attack too fast to dodge, as Terra was thrown backwards through the glass jug setup, falling over the table as the legs gave out and the jugs fell and crashed down everywhere, spilling the water all over the floor and all over Terra even as she was pummeled by several of the heavy flagons.

Puff looked satisfied as Terra's weapon setup fell apart, even as she tried to put more weight on her ankle. Damn, that girl had more miracles to pull out of her ass then where a saint had used the bathroom, a habit among superheroes villains bitched about quite a lot. Apparently it even extended to them when they didn't have powers.

Though it looked like Terra had run out of them, as she lay amongst the wreckage of the table and glass containers, staring with blank eyes across the room.

"Had enough?" Puff challenged.

Terra remained on the ground. For a moment Puff almost walked over to her and curb stomped her, but stopped at the last second.

Smart, as after a few more seconds Terra twitched, and then slowly began pulling herself up.

"Oh what's this? Really." Puff taunted…and then saw it.

Somehow, Terra had managed to hold onto one jug, about 2/3 of the way filled with water.

And with a scream, Terra charged, swinging her arm back as the liquid sloshed inside the container, as she snapped her arm out and sent the water in a shining gush out of the jar and towards Puff.

….who sidestepped it easily, having seen it coming a mile away. She heard it splash on the wall behind her.

Terra faltered at the sight, and then collapsed, the jug rolling from numb fingers.

Puff grinned again.

"You know, unless Carmen comes rolling through the wall and flattens me, I think we can say this game is over."

Silence.

Terra's eyes flicked to the wall. Puff laughed nastily.

"Oh come on, you actually thought it would HAPPEN?" Puff snarked, and then kicked Terra as hard as she could.

Terra, in a tiny part of her head, suspected there might have been some gas projection from Puff's foot as well, as she found herself flying through the air again, landing on another table and feeling it collapse beneath her. It cushioned the impact a bit, and hence made her pain about, oh, .07 percent better then if she'd landed on the floor.

"You really are a blonde. How about we continue on with making you a redhead?" Puff said, referring to the blood from Terra's wounds staining her hair, as Puff reared back and tried to stomp on Terra again.

Terra rolled out of the way, seized a chair, and got up as she swung up with all the adrenaline she could muster.

The chair phased through Puff, who grinned that terrible cruel smirk of hers once more and then blasted acidic gas from her mouth, striking the chair and burning it away as Terra howled and let go of it, clutching her hands from the trace gas that had touched her.

Puff smashed her in the face with another punch, and Terra went down again.

"What's my name, bitch?" Puff said, and kicked Terra while she was down, rolling her over onto her back. Terra coughed, blood emerging from her mouth (albeit from injuries to said mouth rather then her lungs, but at this rate…)…and then amazed herself by trying to get up again.

Only to have Puff punch her down again.

"Yeah! What's my name, bitch? What's my name?" Puff said, as she did her best Muhammad Ali impression and danced around a bit.

"…need a new line…" Terra mumbled.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you forget who was killing who here?" Puff said, and blasted Terra into the ground with a finger gas blast.

"Come on! Get up! It's no fun if you just lie there!" Puff said, and kicked Terra again. That didn't even get her to roll over.

"Oh, have we finally given up? About damn time." Puff said, as she grabbed Terra by the hair, yanked her mostly limp form up, and then, finding a nearby upright chair, shoved Terra into it. Somehow Terra fell onto the chair without breaking it or knocking it over.

Puff waited for Terra to find one last burst of adrenaline and jump out of the chair to try another futile attack, but none came. Instead Terra just looked at Puff with bleary eyes, one side of her face starting to swell, her body out of anger, defiance, and even fear.

"Man, I don't know what they feed you, but it's a goddamn pain in the ass." Puff snarled, as she realized just how much effort she'd had to expend to get to this point. The cops and authorities had done virtually nothing, and here this powerless girl had through insane luck and her fancy car pretty much ruined Puff's whole scheme. It made her angry all over again.

"So, where do you want to start?" Puff said as she began charging up another concussive gas blast. "The arms…or the legs?"

"Actually…maybe the nose." Terra whispered.

"The nose? Why would…" Puff said.

And then she discovered it, as Terra mentioning her nose caused Puff to subconsciously use hers, as she sniffed…and smelled the acrid scent.

"Now what's…" Puff said, as she turned around.

And saw it.

The massive amount of plugs and extensions that had all been put in one socket to feed lights and movie projectors and who knew what else was in flames, the setup melting into a gooey mass as the fire licked the wall and floor, trying to expand itself.

Onto a wall with a clear wet spot.

And as Puff gasped to herself, Terra somehow found the energy to chuckle.

"They're way too sensitive you know."

As Puff's eyes followed the darkly colored smoke from the small fire as it finished drifting it's way up to the ceiling and the-

Sprinklers.

Which exploded into action and unleashed a torrent of driving water down across the entire room, and Puff screamed as she was engulfed, her body spasming as her powers shorted out.

Terra couldn't believe it had worked. Hell, she could barely believe she'd managed it in the first place, that her brain had managed to remember Robin's lessons on observation and deduction well enough to put together the several tossed off memories and comments about smoke detectors, electrical fires, and the overloaded plug with the sprinklers she'd spied on the ceiling during one of the times she'd been lying on her back. That she'd actually managed to fake out Puff and throw water on said overloaded electrical setup to start a fire to trigger said sprinklers.

But as Puff thrashed and screamed, Terra knew there was one last part, as she reached deep down inside her, down into the very core of herself, and as Puff turned around Terra then leapt off the chair and charged, ramming herself into Puff, forced into solidity, and sending her down onto the ground as she fell on top of her.

Maybe some people would have found it titillating as the two thrashed on the floor even as water continued to pour down on the room, but to Terra it was pure brutal survival, as she rained down fists on Puff's face, flailing, trying to land a decent blow.

"AHHHH YOU BITCH!" Puff screamed, as her hand lanced up and seized Terra's ear, and as Terra yelled as she felt Puff try to rip the whole haft off Puff slammed her with another punch, knocking Terra sideways as Puff rolled over and took the top position, screaming as she actually indulged in the cliché and tried to claw Terra's eyes out, raking a gash across Terra's cheek before Terra got a leg up and over Puff, yanking her backwards and off her, pouncing on her again and landing a solid punch to her jaw, but the blow seemed to hurt Terra's hand as much as it did Puff and as Terra recoiled Puff nailed her in the throat. Terra gasped, grabbing at her airway, even as Puff got a leg up and lashed out, nailing Terra square in the forehead with her boot heel and sending more interesting colors exploding across Terra's vision as she reared backwards and fell on her back again.

And she had no time to get her bearings, as Puff jumped on her again and locked her hands around her throat, completely cutting off her wind. Terra's eyes went wide, and she thrashed wildly, trying to break free, but Puff had all the leverage, not to mention the strength advantage, and Terra found to her horror she was trapped as surely as if her neck was in a vise.

Or a foot trap.

Terra tried to think of something, as she flailed, punched, tried to get her legs up, but Puff's position was too strong, and Terra's strength was starting to fade, the corners of her vision was starting to creep with black, as Puff forced her thumbs down, grinning that savage, violent grin, like any predator out of the jungle that had finally brought down its prey even after a long, hard hunt.

"God, what a goddamn farce."

Terra's pupils dilated as she saw Noel, her teammate, suddenly standing next to the thrashing pair, but of course, he wasn't really there, he was just in her head, a hallucination from her situation, like in the car when her biggest problem had been some misguided and overzealous hillbillies an eternity ago. This time her problem was lack of oxygen, and like last time Noel, unlike his pretentious codename, was going to be no help, as he looked at her sadly.

"All the advice and help my teammates give you, and this is where we end up. You on a slab." Noel said with disgust. "They'll all be shocked, but not me. I always knew it."

A tear leaked from Terra's vision: why did her last thoughts have to take the form of THIS…

"You're a failure, Tara Markov. I always knew. I could see it in your eyes." Noel said.

See her future in…

Eyes…

EYES!

GO FOR THE EYES!

And with strength she didn't know she had and with a voiceless scream Terra's arms stopped their mindless thrashing as she extended her thumbs and rammed them as hard as she could right into Puff's shining, malevolent orbs.

She had no idea if she actually damaged them or just hurt them, but as the soft sacks recoiled under her thumbs so did Puff, letting Terra go as she screamed in agony, her hands clawing at her face and Terra's devastating strike, as air came back to Terra's lungs and her brain came afire once more, as Puff swatted her arms away even as she held her bleeding face…

As Terra's hand came across another empty glass water jug, seizing it in her fingers and swinging it up, smashing it across Puff's face.

Puff almost flew off, crashing onto the ground, and before Terra even knew what she was doing she had jumped back on her, pistoning her fist down into the Bang Baby's face, lost in one final blast of animalistic fury, as she screamed wordless rage and punched Puff again, and again, and again, and then in one last explosive blast seized Puff by the hair, reared her head up, and slammed it as hard as she could against the floor, and again, and again, and then she was punching her once more, and then once again slamming her head, and again…

And then it was gone, the anger burned out.

And Terra realized her foe was unconscious.

She'd won.

Still, she knelt/lay there for a moment, searching for any more movement, and when none came she slowly slid herself off the Bang Baby's prone body, sitting on the ground nearby, taking deep, ragged breaths, feeling the water continue to wash over her.

Blinking, she looked up, and found that dream-Noel was still there. Strangely, she wasn't surprised.

Indeed, she took it as a chance to flip him off.

Failure THIS.

And, perhaps even more strangely, Noel gave an approving chuckle.

"Don't let it go to your head." He said, and then he was gone.

Terra stared at the spot where her mind had conjured him, even as the sprinklers finally began shutting down, as Terra slumped down. God she was tired. So very tired.

She had enough energy to look once more at her fallen foe. She'd done it. Somehow she'd done it.

….no, she hadn't. She'd had help. Maybe not in body, but in heart, and in spirit.

Terra coughed, and allowed herself a slight smile.

"And now." She told Puff's unconscious form. "Your name is mud."

The best part about being on her own was no one was around to groan.


	5. Epilogue

**_Epilogue: Terras Irradient_**

"FREEZE!"

Terra's brain returned from the fog that she realized she had slipped into, much to her surprise, and even as she became aware of the world again she heard multiple hard clicking noises behind her. She knew the sound: arming guns.

Apparently the police had finally regrouped, and had made their way to where Terra still sat. She hadn't even heard them break down the door. Man, she really had been out of it. Then again, that wasn't much of a surprise. She'd plumed the utter depths of her being for the strength to survive and (she was still amazed at this fact) triumph against empowered enemies without a trace of her former powers, and in doing so used up everything she had. How she was still conscious, Terra didn't know.

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP NOW!" Came the same nasty yell.

And of course, now that the proper authorities had finally arrived, having been absolutely nowhere to be found during her entire ordeal, they thought she shared in the blame for the crimes the Meta-Men had committed.

But Terra didn't even have the strength left to be even mildly outraged. She was far too tired.

So she did what she had been told to, as she slowly raised her hands.

"GET ON YOUR KNEES! HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!"

Terra wondered if she could muster the energy to get up, but she did, as she slipped onto her knees and put her hands on the back of her head.

Heavily armed SWAT members rushed past her, some sweeping their guns back at her while others trained their weapons on the still unconscious and barely moving Puff. Terra looked at them dully with the one good eye she had left, the other one swelled shut, and then rough hands were grabbing her and pulling her up.

At least they were relatively gentle as they patted her down for weapons and put her in handcuffs. Terra didn't say a word during the time, in protest or in explanation. She was worn to the bone, even in that regard.

And so she let them take her away, sure that whatever might happen, it would be better then what she had somehow survived at the hands of four Bang Babies.

"Geez, looks like we missed one hell of a party." One of the SWAT members commented as he scanned around the ruined room with his gun.

"Can't be a party. Not enough kegs." Another team member replied blackly.

"Stop remarking on the alcohol situation and secure her before she wakes up. And where's that power-blocking collar, we need it on her and active or we may as well let her walk out of here!" The apparent leader barked.

"Yes sir. Yeesh." SWAT Team member 2 said as she looked at Puff's unconscious form and own battered features. "Who the hell did this?"

"Blondie?"

"Blondie? How could that thin little waif do ANYTHING? It looks more like she was on the receiving end!"

"Stranger things have happened." Another SWAT member commented as the team began to restrain Puff. "My cousin Bill once claimed he saw the face of Jimmy Hoffa in a tortilla once. Of course, Bill was always a little strange…"

* * *

Indeed, the Topeka police had returned, reinforced by various other agencies that had arrived as quickly as possible once word in the grapevine spread of the problem: metahuman attack with no metahuman counter-agents. That had included the FBI and some special metahuman containment units that had managed to get there by unknown means. Strangely, any actual metahuman response had yet to arrive, not even the Justice League. It would later be revealed that they'd been out in a mass response to another South Indian earthquake and typhoon. Talk about poor timing.

Unfortunately, even though the groups that had responded had managed a meager unity to try and deal with the attack of the Meta-Men, different law enforcement groups were notorious for their inability to get along. That was bad enough, but finding that the attacking Bang Babies were suddenly down and out, and in one case completely vanished, it had quickly plunged all the units into chaos.

And hence outside the building where the invention symposium was a massive snarl of vehicles: police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, FBI vans, high tech containment vans, news vans, and god knew what else. That and the bureaucratic chaos has caused the evacuation to be rescinded too soon and hence cars driven by civilians had swiftly returned and gotten involved in the tangle, turning traffic into an absolute nightmare for 20 blocks around the area. The area swarmed with dozens upon dozens of people, most of whom had no idea what they were doing and were busy trying to find out.

Terra, tucked away in a squad car near the edge of the many automobiles, barely noticed, staring dully as the seat in front of her as she was watched by a lone officer. She had actually achieved a very rare state: she was so worn out her brain couldn't even process the command to sleep.

So she sat, as the pandemonium whirled and finally began to work itself out around her.

As the man in the nice gray suit and raincoat walked over to the car. The officer, reading a magazine, jumped up in surprise, trying to look busy as the man removed his FBI shield and showed it to him.

"Agent Hopkins. I'm here to have your prisoner released."

"But sir…we don't know…"

"She was not among the group that attacked your station, the bank footage has no sign of her, and the very scattershot eyewitness reports claim she actually seemed to be opposed to the criminals would be very strong evidence that she was not involved in the illegal aspects of the events here today, and we don't even need that. That's the teenage metahuman from the Teen Titans team located in Florida, the geokenetic Terra. Unlike you, I actually recognize her because I don't waste brain cells watching American Idol."

"Hey!" The officer protested. "Elitist."

"Shut up and let her out. You should be ashamed." Agent Hopkins said. The officer grumbled, but he unlocked the door, helped Terra out, and undid her handcuffs.

"My apologues miss. There's a lot of confusion at the moment." Agent Hopkins said…and then sucked air through his teeth. Terra's face was a bloody, swollen mess, and her whole body was a mass of injuries. She looked at with the one eye she didn't have that was swollen shut, only flickers of understanding coming through the gaze. "Come on, the metahuman containment unit has advanced medical tech. You look like you deserve all of it."

Terra continued her silent treatment, as Agent Hopkins led her away.

* * *

It didn't last, as the medical tech did indeed prove to be immensely effective.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Terra said, as she drank ice slivers out of a cup. "I actually feel like me again. Wait, no. I still feel like hamburger." Terra winced, as robot med units finished wrapping her body in bandages.

"If even half of what you told us is true, you're lucky you're NOT hamburger." Agent Hopkins said. "At least we got some of that swelling down so you don't look like hamburger."

Terra didn't reply: she was too busy eating more ice slivers, enjoying the coolness between her teeth.

"Now miss, I can't really see any incongruities in your statement…except…well, WHY?" Agent Hopkins said. "What possibly seized you to face four criminal metahumans on your own, with no actual powers and minimal aid from your vehicle?"

"…It was…just something I had to do." Terra said, as much to herself as Agent Hopkins. "It was…my choice."

"…and you chose to do it alone?"

"….no." Terra said.

"_Welcome to the Titans, Tara." Robin said as he handed her a communicator. "I know you'll do us proud."_

"Not alone." Terra said. "Not alone."

Hopkins stared, then decided he wasn't going to get anything clear out of that statement and pulled out a cigarette.

"I need you to repeat a few parts of your statement to a few people, see if we can do SOMETHING about this mess." Hopkins said as he put it between his teeth and lit it. "Are you up to moving?"

"I'm a lot tougher then I thought." Terra said, as she took one last mouthful of ice slivers and got off her medical bed. Indeed, the doctor had been utterly flabbergasted that after Terra's initial state and her recounting of the blows she'd taken that she wasn't a broken sack of leaking fluid. Indeed, she didn't even have any broken bones, AGAIN: just a variety of small cracks and minor fractures that the advanced medical tech had fixed with nanomachines. When it came to an answer to that, Terra had none.

_Maybe even without my powers my body's more like rock then one would think…_Terra was thinking as she walked with Agent Hopkins.

Only to be startled by blaring horns as a massive tow truck somehow drove through the outer-knotted mass of vehicles before it finally ran out of room, as a myriad of noise sprang up from it. Terra stared at it, blinking.

"Oh NOW what?" Agent Hopkins said, as he deviated from his route and headed over to the tow truck, which was lugging a massive eighteen-wheeler attached to a tanker. A familiar 18-wheeler, Terra recognized. It was the one Carmen had bounced off of and rolled off into the horizon. Hotstreak had been picked up and Onyx was still being unglued from the wall from what Terra could gather, but Carmen-Dillo had still not been located, which just showed the oddity of life: you'd think a giant man-armadillo would stand out.

Hopkins was now yelling at the driver of the tow truck, who was yelling back about schedules and approvals and other nonsense that clearly indicated that once again no one knew what the hell was going on, which explained why the tow truck driver though he could just drive through the mass. Terra sighed and coughed, feeling her body ache from the shaking feeling.

Hopkins stormed off to the side, and Terra began following again.

"Hold on a moment miss, I need to see if we can't make this mess any bigger." Hopkins said with heavy sarcasm and headed off to a large cluster of men, where surely more yelling, denial, ass-covering, and the usual ex officio nonsense would occur for who knew how long. Terra sighed as she stood there, wishing she had more ice chips. And a Dr. Pepper. She could really go for a…

You really couldn't blame Terra for not seeing it. There was so much craziness going around her that even Batman might have been caught off guard.

But as fate had it, she never saw the mass of SWAT officers off to her side, along with two members of the metahuman containment squad whose name Terra kept forgetting, moving out of the science building. She never saw the struggle as something clearly went wrong somewhere.

But she DID hear it when the yell for assistance abruptly turned into a series of yells and cries, and Terra whirled around.

As Puff blew away the officers trying to restrain her, yanking the faultily attached power restraint collar from her neck even as the men and women hit the ground around her. Puff looked like an utter mess, but even her injuries couldn't hide the utter and terribly familar fury in her face as she screamed and fired off two blasts of concussive gas, blowing away the nearest officers.

"SHE'S ESCAPING!"

"GET THE HOSE!"

"COLLAR SHORTED-!"

"SOMEONE…!"

As Puff's eyes locked onto Terra.

"YOU." Puff snarled.

Terra's eyes widened, and then, as the fear exploded through her, the fear she thought she'd exhausted and overcome, but no, fear was eternal, the deepest feeling man could have, it would never be dead and gone and it sure wasn't here, Terra reacted in a knee-jerk fashion and threw her hand up to summon some adamantine protection.

And remembered, for the last time, her powers were still gone.

And then Puff was flying at her.

"I'LL KILL YOU YOU…!" Puff bellowed, as she began inhaling: no more screwing around, no more torture, she was going to acid-mist Terra right out of existence.

And Terra knew that even surrounded by police and other authorities that she was completely on her own. No one would get a gun out, or fire a taser, or nightstick Puff on the head, at least not in time to do anything for Terra. And Puff was going straight for the kill.

After all this…

Time, in that final moment, seemed to slow to a crawl, as Puff began completing her inhale…

_So after all this, I still die._

_NO! You're NOT going to just roll over and die NOW! FIGHT!_

_How? What should I do? Punch her?_

_YES!_

_It won't matter. She'll just turn intangible. Hell, the way that acid comes out, to fire it she probably already turns in…tan…gi…_

…_oh god I AM crazy._

And so in her last moment on Earth, Terra decided she'd meet death on her terms….and dove at Puff.

…it didn't feel like smoke. It felt more like Terra had leapt through a waterfall of boiling hot butterscotch, the intense, noxious gas mixture searing her face and body, Terra barely managing to bite down a scream.

But she made it, as Terra's final burst of deductive reasoning bore fruit: she'd gone right THROUGH Puff.

And life granted her one unexpected bonus: having someone ram through her form as she prepared to fire one of her gaseous attacks acted, to Puff, like the equivalent of a punch in the stomach.

As she gasped out her acid mist, spraying it before her like air being forced from a human's lungs, even as the sensation stunned Puff and rooted her to the spot, as Terra hit the ground and rolled over, needing to know which way to dive…

And then she saw it, even as Puff's corrosive attack sizzled through the tank. She'd never actually noted WHAT the tanker had been hauling. But the words on it were clear.

TOPEKA DEPARTMENT OF WASTE TREATMENT.

"Oh." Terra said. "Shit."

And then she got the hell out of dodge, ironically BY dodging by rolling away like she was trying to set a speed record.

As Puff looked up in horror…

And the tank blew.

Terra was only aware of a horrified scream and one of the worst smells of her life, and by the time she got up it was over.

Puff lay on the ground, once again soaked, this time in among the most horrid stuff one could concept of. Blissfully, she seemed to have passed out. Or maybe she was just in overwhelming shock.

"…well." Terra said, as she looked at the scene, her hand over her mouth. "Could be worse. Could have ruined your car too."

Puff did not reply, as she lay on the ground in the fate of her own making.

As a muscular black man with thinning hair abruptly walked up and looked at the disgusting tableau.

And as expected to those who would recognize him, Ron Simmons only said one word.

"…DAMN."

And then he left, probably heading back into the field to the left he'd come out of.

* * *

"I swear you should get a portion of all their paychecks. Considering you did all the work." Agent Hopkins said a while later.

The mess had finally been relatively cleaned up, more of less. Puff and two of her crew members were now secure and on their way to processing, the tow truck and its ruined cargo had been hauled off, the liquefied feces and who knew what else that had taken Puff out once and for all had been mostly cleaned, and Terra had finally explained her story enough for people to be satisfied.

"Yeah, like that'll happen." Terra groused. "Now, what else do you want me to do? Piss in a cup? Recite my ABC's backwards? Show you my ninja info cards?"

"What?"

"My ninja info cards."

"What the heck are those?"

"My ninja info cards."

"…this is an in joke no one with a life will get, isn't it?"

"My ninja info…ugh." Terra said. "Why can't certain writers restrain themselves…"

"No, nothing else. I think that will do it." Agent Hopkins said.

"Great. Now all I have to do is find a bus schedule, figure out a bus to wherever I left my car, replace the tires, listen to his whining…"

"Oh, ye of little faith." KITT said, as he rolled up next to Terra.

Without a scratch on him.

Terra dropped her Dr. Pepper.

"I know, I just look that damn good." KITT commented.

"Good? Well yeah but…Kitt! You were melted on one side, your front was smashed to hell, who knows what damage there was I didn't see…what…how…?"

"What can I say? AAA kicks ass."

"…I'll take it." Terra said, and hopped into her car.

But, once again, just as she was about to start the engine…

"HEY HEY, WHOA!" Came a voice, and then one of the police officers ran up to her car. To her annoyance, Terra recognized him as one of the mockers from earlier.

Fortunately, Agent Hopkins and the people he'd had her talk to were still around.

"What?" Terra said.

"You can't just drive away! You were brought in on a warrant!" The officer said, and before Hopkins could interject the officer 'helpfully' shoved a file in his hands.

"Oh yeah, that…" Terra groaned, as Hopkins began looking over the file.

"Hey! Hey!" Came another sudden voice, and another police officer ran over. "I just got word. Our out of state guests, uh…they can't make it."

"What?" Said Officer 1, as Hopkins and his fellows watched, Hopkins' eyes flicking back and forth from the file.

"They finally got through…apparently they hit something. Or something hit them. Whatever, they won't be arriving any time soon."

"…well…still, we should still hold her, right? I mean…!"

"Oh dear, it appears in all the problems the young metahuman girl brought up on charges slipped away before we realized we had to hold her. Oops." Hopkins said, as he closed the file.

"But…"

"A bench warrant should probably be sworn, but then again, the charges seemed rather nonsensical to begin with. Would probably be best for everyone if they were all dropped and forgotten." Hopkins said. "More trouble then its worth."

"Er…"

Hopkins ripped the file in half.

"…sure…fine…less paperwork…" The officer said, and walked off.

"You have a good day now, miss." Hopkins said quietly.

"Oh, too much crap for it to be considered a GOOD day…but it's definitely getting better." Terra said, and started her car. "Now, do I actually need to tell you where I'm going?"

"It wouldn't be much of a vacation if you did." Hopkins replied.

"Aye aye, Mission Commander Swanbeck." Terra said, and drove off, KITT weaving its way through the still rather tangled mass of vehicles, past the news vans and its mass of reporters, and then through an amazing shortcut through the traffic mess around the area and onto a road out of Topeka.

"We should stop and get some gas Kitt, before we end up getting stranded in Pleasant Valley or something…" Terra said.

"Oh don't worry about gas Lady Terra."

"What, did AAA fill you up as well?"

"Well no…you see…some would think one cannot siphon gas from cars without opposing thumbs…but they would be wrong…and one would think one would feel guilty over this siphoning until one knows said gas came from the news vans. Then one will just accept it."

"You don't see me complaining." Terra said.

"Lady Terra, I must ask, even if it has been asked before. Why did you do this?"

Terra was silent.

"…I 'unno." Terra said. "File it under hero stuff."

"I'll never understand you humans."

"Join the club." Terra said and reached for the radio knob. "Now, time for some inspiring exit music!"

_Whirr-klick._

"_Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you…"_

"…okay, let's try another station."

_KLIK._

"_I FOUGHT THE LAW, AND THE LAW WON!"_

"No."

_KLIK._

"_Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in the town!"_

"Meh, close enough…"

"Should you really accept that Lady Terra, considering who would be most likely to try and stage a jailbreak?"

"Argh, fine! One last try!"

_KLIK._

"_Hello, and this is the Rush Limbaugh show!"_

"ACCCCCCK! Kill it! Kill it with fire!" Terra said, and snapped the dial to the off position. "Radio sucks. Want to play 20 Questions?"

"I actually have just one, Lady Terra."

"What?"

"Did they ever manage to locate that Carmen-Dillo person?"

* * *

Somewhere in the sticks. One old cop car, newly wrecked. A very dazed Bang Baby. And a bunch of rednecks.

"…well, we ain't found no pork rinds, but ya ever had barbequed armadillo?" Hillbilly Cop 1 said.

"AH! SCARY!" Carmen-dillo, having finally come to a stop by crashing into the cop cars, shrieked as he realized he was out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"Ack! It talks!" Another hillbilly cop said. "We don't take kindly to that in Yankiessuxlol313 County!"

"…huh?" Carmen-Dillo said. "Do you actually realize the South is NOTHING LIKE THIS?"

"…SHOOT 'IM UP, SHOOT 'IM UP, POW POW!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Carmen screamed as he fled, as the remaining cars gave chase, guns firing and voices whooping, into the distant setting sun.

As Terra, in full straw hat and overalls regalia, chewing on a grass stalk, leaned into the picture and winked.

"Ya'll come back now, y'hear!"

_**THE END**_

* * *

(Closing credits: Terra driving alone on a road with the wind blowing her hair, the sun setting behind her. Credits scroll up, as 'There and Back Again' by Daughtry, 'Gunboat' by Vixtrola, and 'Feel Good Inc' by the Gorillaz all play over the credits. Afraid you'll have to use your imagination here.

Story's done. Thanks for reading. See you around.)


End file.
